Iron Jack

After a week without training, and still with a fairly decent dose of a head cold, I was absolutely determined to get out for my week’s “long ride”. With just under two months to go until the Half Ironman, I am really conscious that I need to get some serious miles under my belt – or under my tyres as it were.

 

So even though I was still feeling very much under the weather, I had arranged to meet my friend Mary-Ann halfway into town. I set the alarm for 6:30am. Incidentally – who sets their alarm for 6:30am on a weekend? Clearly I am completely mad.

 

I was up before the alarm went off anyway – the alarm clock that is Toby went off well before 6:30am!

 

Usual story. I fuelled my body, suited up, took some deep breaths and headed out the door.

 

Halfway up the road I realised my tyres were seriously flat. I berated myself yet again. I always try to be so prepared, but I always miss something. I couldn’t turn back though – we had arranged to each leave at 7:30am and meet somewhere in the middle.

 

I had a reasonable ride into town – considering I couldn’t really breathe and had tyres that were flat as a pancake!

 

I eventually spotted another flash of fluro yellow heading down the road towards me. After flipping a u-turn on the main road, the usual discussion about where to go ensued. We decided to go for a very leisurely ride around the lake – me because I was struggling with my cold, and Mary-Ann because it had been a few weeks since she’d been out on the road. But first we headed back to Mary-Ann’s house so I could pump up my tyres.

 

First lesson of the day. It turns out, that if you don’t unscrew the end on the valve, you don’t pump any air into your tyres. At all. No wonder they keep going flat, despite me spending lots of time “pumping” them up.

 

We headed back out again. I was finding it quite a hard ride I have to say.

 

Mary-Ann is much faster than me, but we had agreed that she should just go on ahead and I would get there eventually. She was doing me a huge favour by keeping me company – and in turn I was doing her a favour by actually getting her off the wind trainer and onto the road! A great arrangement and a great team!

 

I finally caught her up after she had stopped to wait for me by the Tauranga Direct Road.

 

“I’m doing it really hard today,” I panted.

 

“You do realise you’re in your big chain ring don’t you,” she asked in return.

 

Unbelievable. I felt like such a winner (said with complete sarcasm and meaning a complete dick!) Second lesson of the day.

 

Fortunately I was out riding with the woman who has fallen off her wind trainer twice at our spin sessions, and put a hole in her wetsuit immediately after our coach told her to cut her nails! Third and fourth lessons of the day to keep in mind!

 

We’re both of the firm view that this whole thing has to be fun – if it’s not, it’s not worth doing. Yes we’re both very serious about it, but by god we’re going to have a good laugh as well.

 

Once I’d stopped splitting my sides we carried on.

 

With a strong head and cross wind, it was a long ride around the lake. But good.

 

We went our separate ways at Fairy Springs Road and I rode the rest of the way home.

 

In a continuation of the comedy of errors that was our ride, both of us had forgotten to re-start our bike computers after one of our stops, so neither of us had any idea exactly how far we had ridden – or for how long.

 

When I got home I headed straight for the computer to map the route. Nearly 65km. Fantastic! My longest ride yet and my longest time on the bike. It gave me a fantastic confidence boost and I finally feel like I will be able to do the ride section of the Half Ironman. I’m nearly there and I now know I can do it.

 

A great ride. A fantastic riding companion. All good.

Saturday morning dawned cold, bright, clear and windy - very windy. But having postponed a ride the day before, I knew it was time to literally get on my bike.

I looked spectacular, if I do say so myself. Reebok compression tights, Reebok compression top - both on the bottom layer. Next layer, olive green thermal top, padded bike banks. Next layer, Reebok windbreaker jacket, purple stripey long johns - the sexiest pants you have ever seen. Next layer, fluro yellow cycling top. Boootiful.

I met fellow RATs club member Irene in town just after 9am, dropping Oli at a friend’s house on the way in. We saddled up and headed out of town, deciding to ride around Mt Ngongotaha. I hadn’t done this ride before, but had wanted to for a while, I just didn’t want to do it on my own. We live in a suburb just out of town called Ngongotaha and our block looks onto the mountain. Even though I grew up in Auckland, we are so at home here that I claim it as my maunga - or mountain, which is what anchors me.

We took a slightly longer, less busy route to get there. This route ended with a nasty hill taking us onto another very nasty hill that was the beginning of the around mountain ride. Nasty. Irene absolutely kicked my arse. She has been riding a lot longer than me and this was really only my second proper ride, but even so, she cranked up the hills. At some places I felt like I was practically going backwards! But I’d get around the corner and she would always be there waiting for me.

There were about three killer hills on that lefthand stretch of the mountain. Cold, icy, up. Then we whizzed down into Paradise Valley - very carefully given some of the ice patches around.

“That was a bit better,” I breathed as we rounded up at the bottom.

“Yeah, but you know what - now that we’ve come down, we’ve gotta climb out!” she said cheerily.

We both agreed that the way out and up this side was a lot easier going than the initial hill sections. And it was. Stunning actually. Sunny, views out over farms and native bush. Just gorgeous actually. I loved it. There were still some hills, but I was finally brave enough to try and get up on my pedals - what a difference. I can’t go for very long standing up, but it was a bit of a breakthrough. Every hill we can across for the rest of the ride, I stood up. Awesome.

We eventually came out on the main highway and rode back into town - into a head wind. We eventually made it back to the cars two hours and 31 kilometres later. Way too slow for me for the Half Ironman in January, but a good breakthrough ride and definately a confidence booster. Looking forward to the next one.