The cold, wet, muddy one…
What a mission to drag myself out of bed, out of my PJs and out of the house this morning.
The kids are finally starting to sleep in a bit longer - I hate to jinx myself but number 2 seems to have reached a turning point in the whole sleeping thing. As a result, we are getting more sleep, and a slightly longer sleep-in in the morning, but we still want more!
Today was the second round in the RATs winter duathlon series. I had been really looking forward to the first one. I had done quite a bit of mountain bike training, and even though I knew the MTB section was straight up, I hadn’t done an event for ages and so I was looking forward to getting stuck in and leveraging the motivation that comes from doing an event.
Not this time! Rather than looking forward to the challenge of the uphill, I was absolutely dreading it.
But, deep down I knew that there was actually no way in hell that I wasn’t going to do it. That would be letting me down, and letting everyone else down as well.
So after a quick tweet (where I got my arse absolutely kicked out the door) I got myself sorted and on the road pronto.
Some serious motivation was required. A quick search through the CD wallet at the traffic lights revealed a crisis situation. My Live CD was missing! This was serious. I settled for The Killers instead and absolutely blasted my way to the mountain bike park.
I ran (yes ran) to registration - talk about just in the nick of time - ran back to the car (yes ran), got my bike and gear off the car and ran back to transition to get set up. No problem. I even had time for another quick run to warm up (yes ran again!).
The briefing was pretty basic - “its very wet and slippery up there guys, take care”. Great.
I knew it wouldn’t be a great run - I’ve been fighting a cold all week - but I did want to try and go a bit faster. Unfortunately the first stretch is an uphill - and it was very wet and slippery, and also quite rocky as the recent rain had washed away a lot of the sand and gravel, leaving behind a much rockier terrain. I headed out a bit fast, still a long way behind the pack, and immediately regretted it. I managed to get to my four minute “hump” mark and then settled into a better pace for me. The first lap was pretty hard going, but the second lap was much easier. And, I wasn’t last out of the run - I finally managed to pass someone - a sensational feeling!
I ran through the transition, collected my bike and out over the bridge.
“Ooooo, she’s good to sit down,” I said to Mike as I cycled past.
I got passed up the first uphill, but I knew she wouldn’t be in front of me for long. I haven’t been doing any mountain biking, but I have been doing spin classes with the triathlon club (RATs) and I was feeling significantly more comfortable - and confident - on the bike. And it immediately showed. I cruised past my target and reached The Wash very comfortably. I was hardly in my easiest gear, and it was just a great ride.
The long rocky road up was still long and hard going, and the long forestry section up was still wet, slippery and challenging, but I reached the top in a much better condition than the last time and the ride down was literally a breeze. I loved it! I knew more people doing the long course today and still had enough in me to whoop and cheer them on - and receive their words of encouragement in return.
I ran the bike through transition and headed out for the last running lap. Oh my god. Legs dead. It was a long upwards stretch but I still ran the whole way. Once I moved into the second stretch I had run out a lot of the soreness and actually enjoyed the last two thirds.
And I sprinted to the finish! First time I have done that in any event I’ve done this year. Fantastic.
Big thanks to Mike who managed to get both of the boys into the car and out to Waipa. And big thanks to Jane (mum-in-law) who took a wide detour from Tokoroa to cheer me on before heading back to Auckland.
Next on the agenda is Mike’s half-marathon in Auckland next weekend - me and my sister are doing the 10km.
Hopefully it won’t be so hard to get out of bed for the next one.