The weekend with round Taupo cycle challenge

Hi,

Well, it was finally the weekend of the big race, and what I had been training for months (since May, really) to do.  No pressure!  Hahahah.

I drove up to Palmerston North on Thursday and gate crashed Iona's relaxing evening with her friends (she is only up for a week, so has to make all her social interaction to last her for her next Blenheim sojourn).  Ate their dinner they had sorted and all sorts.  Oops.

I slept well and eventually got out of bed Friday morning.  Nipped out to the supermarket to get my provisions for the weekend while Iona and Col got their house ready for open home stuff over the weekend.

We left by midday and caught up in Taihape at Soul Cafe.  Where I had an iced coffee.

Iced coffee

And bombed

We got to Taupo by 3.30pm and I sorted myself out at Iona and Col's unit to pick up our house keys and register.  As I collected the envelope from Harcourts, after asking for Angela Gilbert and receiving the keys with Mike's name on it, I saw the underlined sentence on it:  No linen hired.

Oops.  Looked like a trip to Farmers was needed as by this stage it was 4.30pm and I figured Mike would have left Wellington already.  But, as I walked to registration, I checked my texts and Mike had just asked if he needed to pack towels as he was just about to leave home.  I rang him, and changed the towel order to every possible piece of linen!  Woot!  Crisis averted.

I left Iona and Col to their evening and spent almost an hour driving back to our house in Bracken Row - which would normally take about 6 minutes.  I found our house, unpacked, sorted out my gear and then cooked tea.  I was pretty tired and in bed by 8.30pm.  It was so hot, I lay on top of the bed in my shorty pyjamas and fell asleep easily.  Mike got in around midnight and managed to wake me a little, get me into my sleeping bag liner and a pillow case on my pillow, and I fell back asleep.


The actual race day started for me at 5.15am - I woke up an hour before my alarm.  Guess I had plenty of sleep by then.  I got up and cooked porridge and an omelette.  Tried to eat most of it.  Maybe I did or maybe I need to stick to scrambled eggs and toast for next year so I will eat it all.  My wave was W1 and had an approximate start time of 8.30am.  I walked down to the start (15 minutes walk) with Mike and my bike at 7.15am.  Sat and watched the start waves for while, before I saw mine around 7.55am getting close to the start line.  I kissed Mike and jumped in - and our wave started at 8.12am!  Glad I was early.

Mike wrote "Focus" on the inside of my left arm, with two kisses.  That was a good help.  

My 2017 bib

Race starts

Ok.  Let's look at the race day and do some analysis.  I was fitter than last year - I can tell that easily.  The conditions were as perfect as Iona has ever seen - and this race was her 10th year!  No wind (I only noticed a slight headwind at the top of Hatepe hill - barely there) and overcast most of the day.  It was supposed to burn off, but it never really cleared.  I could see my shadow most of the day from the sun trying to peek out.

I had sunscreen caked on.  And two litres of water in my Camelbak, and two 750ml bottles on the bike - one with water and one with electrolyte.  By the end, I had a litre left in my Camelbak and had used a third of the water in my water bottle and taken two sips from the electrolyte.  I ate my way through about 7 jetplane lollies.

Coming out of Taupo, I got onto the back road fairly far back in my start wave.  But I found my legs after about a kilometre and ended up in the second bunch.  But I pulled away from there.  They caught me around 10km and I tacked into that.  Wow!  We moved along.  But about 25km in, someone dropped a water bottle and the bunch broke up.  I never got into another bunch again.

I was about 20 minutes ahead of my plan at the 40 km mark.  And then - I tanked.  Huge.  40 - 80km was my downfall.  My legs stopped on the uphills (well, not literally, but I was grinding up them).

Heart rate for the 6 hours 46 minutes - look at my average!

The conditions were hotter than any training I had done - and I probably didn't drink enough water.  By the time I weighed myself Monday morning, I had lost of kilo from my Thursday weight.  Which probably means I lost slightly more than that during the race itself, given I ate quite a bit on Sunday. And drank lots.

My watch is a Garmin and measures heart rate.  The stats were fascinating for this.  My average heart rate was 153.  That is so fast to keep that up for almost 7 hours.  No wonder I was tired when I finished.

The sweaty conditions meant the word "focus" on my arm got smudged, so it read more like "fucus".  And if you sound that out, it was really what I was thinking at about 90km, if I was the swearing type.  Hahahah.

But it was actually good having it there - someone read it out as they passed me and said "Focus, Angela".  That made me laugh.

After Waihi hill down into Tokaanu, I tried to kick up a gear - and I probably did.  But it was too late by then to claw back my lost time.  The ride along the flats was good.  Hatepe was a grind, but not too bad.  The last 20km seemed to pass by fairly quickly.  Mike was shouting at me as I crossed the finish line and I never heard a thing - I was so concentrated on finishing.  But I found Sreejith and his family immediately.  They congratulated me and I heard Sreejith knocked an hour off his time!  Wow!

Next time, I will drink more electrolyte (but I need one I like - this one was awful), and use a power bar instead of lollies.  And bunch ride.  And I will crack that 6 hour mark.

I was really rather exhausted after crossing the line.  Far more than I have been in my previous three rides.  It took me a while to come right.  And my left shoulder was sore.  I think I need to tweak the configuration on my bike a bit.  Raise my handlebars a little.  I sat with Mike and Toby and could only eat some scorched almonds.  The drinks and other snacks I just couldn't handle.

We walked home slowly and I jumped in the shower to wash off the caked on road dirt.  I felt so much better after that.  We wandered over to Iona and Col's place to chill out.

Helen (their friend that did the enduro - twice around!) got stung by something after Turangi, but well before Hatepe.  She killed it between her shirt folds, but by then the damage was done.  When she finished, she noticed she was itchy.  Well, by the time she got back to the motel, she was covered from head to foot in this massive hive rash.  It looked dire - and she had to strip and have a cold shower.  And then swallow anti histamine hand over fist.  Wow!

Back home and I was asleep by 9pm.  Up at 5.30am to get back to Col's place to watch the rugby with her.  NZ versus Wales.  Great match - and NZ was lucky to pull that off with that score.  31 - 18.

Celebration brekkie with Sreejith's family

Back home to check out and then brekkie time.  Caught up at Replete with Iona, Col, Helena nd Mandy before they left and we went to Cafe 99 to meet Sreejith and his family.  Mike and Toby ate there the day before and Toby had the best poached eggs of his life.

This morning he had the worst ones ever.  Oh well.  We dropped the keys at the Z station and then headed home.  At Taihape I filled up the car and went in to pay.  I met a client in the queue (Kumar) and we chatted.  Then as I exited, I saw a Spin instructor.  Her name escaped me, so my stupid brain took over as it clicked as to how I knew her and I said (so adroitly) "Hello there - you are the Spin woman".  Yes, I called someone "The spin woman".  Anyway, after I explained who I was (more startling conversation from me: "I am the one in the back row with a cap on"), she kindly chatted to me.  She had just been MTBing in Rotorua and did the MTB race at Taupo.  Oossshh!

The rest of the drive home was good.  I sang lots.  We got home around 4pm and the cat got a lot of smooches.  I had a mountain of laundry.  Doro came around to stay the night.

But a huge thank you to everyone that made my weekend so special.  Sreejith for his motivation in training.  My spin instructors for giving up their time to teach classes and keep me fit.  Family and friends for support.  Wow.  Just amazing.  Thank you.

Lots of love,
Angela