Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge

First things first - I took away "the bling" because I got nothing but grief from my dear husband, who thought it was ridiculous! Second thing, I decided I needed a more "sporty" looking photo so I put this new one on.... however, seeing as this was taken just before I got organised to do the biggest ride of my life, I look shit scared. So, will post a new one maybe after this weekends triathlon instead.

The Round Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge is 160kms of awesome scenery, thousands of cyclists all shapes, sizes & fitness levels, and riding anything from a unicycle to the flashest race bike you'll ever see. It's a pretty amazing event with fantastic organisation. I'm glad I have finally done it, but I still can't quite get over how so many people can think that riding 160kms is a normal Saturday thing to do. It does my head in to think that some lunatics did 2 laps, and some totally insane people did 4!!! Now that is just mental!

So, anyway, to my one measely lap which kind of pales in comparison to the insane, but it was still a tough day in the saddle all the same. The day dawned with some light rain and not a breath of wind. By the time we were lining up to start, the rain had stopped and it was overcast, but still no wind! It pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the day - the conditions were absolutely perfect! The first 50kms went by pretty well - was feeling quite good managing to pass lots of people on the uphills, and cruise down the downhills. Then my knee went. I couldn't stand on any uphills, and there are some fairly mean ones in this race I have to say. As this has happened to me a couple of times over the last few weeks, I had to start wondering why. I have come up with the fact that I tend to "mash' the pedals rather than cycle in the nice circles that you are meant to. This puts pressure on my knee as I am always pushing it down and not pulling it up - that's my theory anyway.

So, I had the joy of doing the Kuratau Hill and the even worse Hatepe Hill without being able to stand. Needless to say I was very nervous about reaching those hills. In the meantime I could feel myself falling apart a little bit at a time. My shoulders started to hurt, my butt was uncomfortable, my nutrition was just blah, and I got off a few times. I had told myself I wasn't going to do that unless it was for the toilet or to refill water bottles. Oh well, at least I got back on and kept pedalling. I got up Kuratau Hill ok and the view at the top was fantastic! I almost wished I had bought the camera. The worst part about it was seeing that Taupo was way way way over the other side, and I had to pedal to get back there. Then started probably the biggest, fastest decent of a hill I have ever done. It was pretty fantastic and I don't normally like downhills, but after all the ups it was a real blessing.

On to the flat for about 40kms from there and that seemed to give my knee some time to re-cooperate after all the hills, and I even managed a few goes on the aero bars. Then came the Hatepe Hill. This is renowned for being the hill that makes you walk. It is so far into the race, and after such a long flat stretch, that it just hurts! I can atest to that bit, but I got all the way up the blasted thing without stopping - and still sitting. So there you go, I can do it after all - maybe it's all a mental thing my having to stand up hills.

The last 20kms was hard - I knew I was nearly there, but it still seemed so far away. Finally I cossed the finish line in a time of 7hrs 34 mins!!! My actual ride time was 7hrs 15mins, so I had 20mins of stops - oh well, gives me something to work on for Ironman - I can't afford to give up that much time for goodness sakes! So, time to toughen up on the bike - but 7hrs is such a long time - if I could get faster then I wouldn't need to sit on the thing for so long. Unfortunately there's not much time left to do that, so toughen up it is....

I found Paul waiting at the car, getting a bit worried about where I was - he had smoked it in 5hrs 5mins, so needless to say he had been waiting a while. There was supposed to be a small run off the bike, but I have to confess that I just wasn't up to it - I had lost the mental game for that day and it all stopped when I got off the bike. We did however get up and ride for 45mins today - my butt didn't want to make contact with the seat at first, but once it got used to it the spin out actually felt pretty good. There were sooooo many people out enjoying the sunshine and spinning there tired legs out, it was amazing. All nuts the lot of us....

So, all in all I have a mixed review of the ride. the stops annoyed me, the knee was a bugger, the sitting all the way up those humungous hills was amazing, and the fact that I sat on a bike for over 7 hours and cycled 160kms is quite outstanding. Still plenty to work on with my head game as well as my cycling ability, but, I STILL DID IT!!!! YAY ME.....

Lake Taupo on Sunday morning - BEAUTIFUL



The biggest prizegiving I have ever been to