Well it already seems like a little while ago that I raced Karapoti, but in fact it was only just 2 days ago. I decided to do Karapoti 2 weeks out and was super lucky to have the Peters family offer me a seat in their car to get to Wellington and back. It made the travel fun and fast, despite taking 6 or so hours each way.
I had done Karapoti once before but had such a bad time that I had no intention to ever do it again. In my first encounter with Karapoti I had one front and one back tire puncture in the first half hour or so and after that no more air to fix any further punctures, it made for a very long and slow ride as I knew, if I managed to get another flat tire, I would have had to walk the rest of the course and there are now short cuts back to the start/finish area. Luckily I got through without any more punctures.
I was determined to have a better time on the course this time round, meaning more fun on the bike and less time to get through the course. I was hoping to find the course in pretty dry condition but little did I know that it had rained most of the week, not in Wellington, but on the hills where the course is located at; so much for a dry fast track!
The start always seems to be a bit of a scramble as everyone lines up along the river in random order. As soon as the gun goes everyone tries to run through the river and get to the tarmac first. I managed to find some pretty deep spots in the river and had the water up to my hip, luckily the water didn't feel too cold and we soon would get covered in mud from head to toe anyway.
The first little bit of the course is on the road which then leads into a gravel road through the gorge. There is plenty of space to pass people as long as you don't mind riding through massive puddles and getting splashed, but that's all part of racing Karapoti. I managed go get my way back up the field after I ended up way back at the start due to my poor navigation though the river and probably not ideal starting spot. When I saw Nic Leary a little way ahead I planed to catch her up and then stay there for a little while to wait for a good place to attack but when I got to her I had changed my mind and instead of easing back kept going at a steady pace. I was expecting Nic to get on my wheel and stay with me but she didn't, I didn't know for sure if I had managed to dropped her as I didn't want to look back, so I just kept pushing and by the time I did look back the distance was big enough that I couldn't see her anymore. I wasn't sure if there where any other girls ahead as I came from the back and decided to keep pushing ahead to hopefully catchup to any other competitors I had. I caught up to some guys and some other guys came past me from the back but I didn't see any more girls. Eventually Garth came flying past me and then Marcello caught up to me too and the both told me that I was the first girl, so I was getting more sure about my position.
The devils staircase was a bit of a grovel but the rock garden was great fun and would be fantastic if I had time to look at it beforehand as almost all of it is ridable if you pick the right lines. Unfortunately the end of the ride was a bit of a downer as we went back into the rain and super wet and muddy gorge, I would have loved the race to stop at the bottom of the last decent but that doesn't quite work.
I won the race with an 8 min lead, I am very happy with my result and that I managed to defeat my national mountain bike marathon champion title.
Tim Wilding won the race in a staggering 2h 21 min!!! what a machine!! :)
Dirk unfortunately had his chain come off at the start of the race, lost some valuable time and didn't manage to connect with the front few riders again. He finished 8th overall which is still a great effort. He's also Under 23 Marathon Champion.
Alexa won her race (Under 19) and won, just like her brother, her second championship title in two weeks!
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