Highland Fling - A beginners view

As you know last Sunday I rode in a mountain bike race in the Southern Highlands of NSW in a small town called Bundanoon. The race had a few different divisions; a 165 km race, a 112 km race and the 59 km race. I did the 59km race that started at 815am. 

My route is seen below. I went out on the blue line and came back on the red line

Click here for larger version of the map

To get down there Chris Richardson, also know as 'Alyssa's Dad', Chloe's good friend, drove the two hour trip with the bikes on the top of the car and our gear firmly packed in the back.

There was all this energy food stuff that was recommended to me. Things like high energy bars and these horrible small gel things that tasted like gluggy thick sweet jelly. Also I had to wear a special backpack that has a water bladder in it to hold 2 litres of water or gatorade. It has a small tube that runs out the bottom and a hose that runs up your back so you can drink while you ride.

At about the 15km mark that small tube disconnected out the back and I had about 300ml of gatorade run down my back. A quick stop and the tube was back in.

We arrived into Bundanoon about 3pm on Saturday. The small hamlet was packed but Chris and I were able to find a coffee shop to watch the world got past.

Bundanoon is what you may call an alternative town but I doubt the bride knew about the 2000 visitors that were here on 'HER' day. Someone will pay for this one I am sure.

Wedding day for some

The decision was made not to stand in the cue so we made our way to the event grounds were we would setup the tent in paddocks which were strewn with Olympic disc sized cowpats. There were dry and easily moved to more appropriate areas.

We settled in quickly and waited for other friends to arrive as we set up the tents.

Matt [works for Chris], Paul [a friend of Matt's] and Chris [Alyssa's Dad]

Stuart the paramedic. Yes he slept in that blue bag.

The guys told us 'new' riders to this event that there was a good pizza restaurant in town. So all 8 of us went back in town to register and carbo load with a few pizzas. There was a request for some red wine...not too much. But thank goodness that the bottle shop was already closed.

About 9pm the call for bed was agreed to. I was soon asleep but I woke about 1am and had a very restless sleep until 515. Now I have been told by Rachel that I only snore when I have had a few. So I told the guys I am okay and wont annoy them. But alas Rachel is too kind to me as the guys advised me that yes I do yawn. Rachel's reasoning when asked Sunday night was that after 17 years she has blocked the noise out !!!!

Bag piper

Waking at 515am the grounds were peacful with the fellow 2000 competitors slowly rising. But right on 530am a bagpiper fired up his instrument and walked across the paddocks waking everybody up. Well it is called the Highland Fling

Breakfast was a sausage and egg roll and a bacon and egg roll washed down with a large capucino. A breakfast of champions or my last supper !!!!

I got prepared as best I could as I didnt want to forget anything. I watched the other guys who have done many of these races before to see how they got ready.

I made sure I had water, gatorade, energy gels, energy bars, fruit, spare tyre tubes and tools, nurofen, sun cream and asthma puffer. At one point I thought I was ready until Chris came over and gave me my helmet. Oops. One of the more experienced riders amongst us also almost forgot his helmet. I guess we had our minds on other things. 

My friends who were all riding the 112km race started at 715am and I watched them take off. There was a break of an hour till my start so I did a pretend start from the start line and rode the first 1km. I wanted to see what it was like as I had never ridden in such a large group of bikes and I didnt want to be in a pile up at the start.

When I got back to the start line I tried to eat one of the energy bars...horrible things and I had one of the icky gels. I washed all that down with water and after applying sun cream I was ready [!!!!] to go.

Before shot of me

Before shot of the bike

  
I started at 815am with the other 971 riders in my section. It felt like everyone passed me on the first 5kms and I was okay with that. I am sure I even saw the wicked witch of the East with a Basket of flowers on the front of her bike stroll past me.

The first section was across rolling paddocks and I was happy to see that I was not the only rider getting off their bike this early to push the bike up the hills. 

[These photos with lines through them are the official photos taken by the event staff]

 

We rode through fire trails and more paddocks until we got to the first thigh high deep water crossing where we stood in a cue of about 15 minutes to wait and carry the bike across the creek and climb out the other side with heavy wet shoes.

In this first stage I was climbing and diving and climbing. I was very aware that with every downhill section there would soon be a hill.......whats goes up must come down.

I came into the end of the first stage at 27km. It took me 1 hour 59 minutes. I was happy with my average speed and I was feeling good. I topped up the water and had another icky gel, more energy bar and a banana. I stopped for what felt like about 10 minutes at most, as I wanted to make sure I didnt cool down too much.

Out of that transition it was a good first few km's....then the hills arrived. I found that I would be riding with a similar bunch. I was going okay on the flat and down hill sections but as soon as there was a decent hill they would easily catch me. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasnt racing them. I needed to keep a good pace that allowed me to finish but also be mindful that I had to leave something in the tank for what was looking like a 5 hour effort.

At about the 35km mark and at exactly 11am I got my first of a few cramps on a small climb. As you know Sunday was rememberance day. So I had to stop on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month....that was eerie. I think some people 'up there' gave me that cramp and told me to rest.

I drank quite a bit of gatorade to try and relieve the cramp and I kept walking with the bike so I wouldnt sieze up. 

It was also about this time that the ELITE riders who were competing in their 112km race were starting to catch us smaller distance back markers. As they flew up behind me they would say 'keep to your left' and swooooosh they would fly past. Most of them would also yell out 'keep pushing...well done'. Which was nice. 

You may see on the map that there is a section called the 'Roller Coaster'. This was a section were there was what they call 'single track'. This is very narrow track through dense severe undulating terrain. 

It certainly sorted me out. First of all I am not good enough to handle this stuff as you would see the good guys go through these sections at high speed and fly over the ledges and rocks with ease. So as I am not confident enough to go fast it made it all even harder.

At one ledge, I misjudged the jump and with fatigue and poor technique I went over the handle bars and smashed back first into the track and had the bike land on my chest as I rolled. I knew I had made a mistake and looked straight behind me to see if anyone was close to me. Luckily there wasn't, so I checked my bones to see if they were all pointing the right way. I jumped back on and off I went again...a little spooked...but I had to keep going.

 

Before I started I knew that the gearing in the bike was not up to scratch as the repairs needed were a few hundred dollars. The main sections that were hard were those hilly sections were I would try to push hard and the chain would slip between the gears.

I was carrying a GPS monitor to see my speed, distance and time throughout the race. But it was with some relief that I saw the '10km to go' sign. At the pace I was now doing it meant I still had about an hour to go.

As I was tiring badly on some tough dangerous sections I would say out loud 'concentrate...concentrate'. That helped a lot and stopped me from making more mistakes.

People have asked me since Sunday whether I felt like quitting at anytime. There wasnt really the option to stop as I was so far from the event centre, I had little choice but to push on.

At the 5km to go mark it still felt like a million kms to the finish. At no point did I have the energy to think 'push hard...not long to go'. I was stuffed.

I came out of the last forest section and there was a about 2km's of country road and mostly down hill. At that point I felt like I was home and I hit my top speed of 40kms per hour.

Then with 1km to go the track turned into the last small section through a lovely property with horse stables. There was a small hill that caught me out as the gearing failed me again and the chain fell off. A quick fix and I was back on.

Through the property the track took me around a small raised dam where the line that I had to take was very narrow around the edge of the damn "concentrate...concentrate" I yelled to myself. If I fell I was either in the dam or down the hill. The front wheel was wobbling I admit.

The 500 metres to go mark soon came up and there was one last challenge as we had to go under a bridge....there was no track just jagged rocks.. Getting off the bike I carried the bike under the bridge. Back on the bike there was still a climb to the finish line. 

I had nothing left but then I saw the large blue finishing line. I started getting emotional as I crossed then line. Sheer exhaustion.

After getting through the finishing gates many others were sitting around on the grass. I found a spot and collapsed to the ground and just lay there.

I rang Rachel and told her I was finished and almost burst into tears. Thats when I sent you all a text message.

It was easily the hardest thing I have ever done. 

I cannot say that I enjoyed it at any time as it was so tiring and so challenging and the constant fear of crashing laid so heavily on my mind.

After shot of me [I didnt lose enough weight in the race for my double chin to go away]

The bike after shot

These will take some cleaning

 Some statistics

• First stage 1 hour 59 min16.7 seconds
• Second stage  3 hours 19 minutes 36.9 seconds
• Overall 5 hours 18 minutes 53.6 seconds

Official results here

Of all the starters in what they called the 'Half Fling' of 59kms, overall I came 893 of 972 starters and 345th out of 361 starters in my 'Masters' division [over 35 years I think].

Before last Sunday my previous longest ride was 27kms on off road riding and my previous longest ride on the road was 37kms.

I finished about 1.30pm in the afternoon. My friends who rode the 112km race came in about 20 minutes later. They did their race in around 6 hours and 20 minutes.

The guys were sincerly happy that I had finished.

In the days since I have not been as sore as I thought I would be but the emotions have been weird as on Monday I felt very flat as the adrenalin started to wear off.

The question has been asked 'so are you gonna ride in another race?'. My answer has been a clear NO. However, the Terrey Hills guys have been very clear that I have to keep going after how I went on my first attempt.

Only time will answer this question   

Here is a short video of the event Click here