Ever since there was a National Marathon Championship in Australia, this race has excited me. Since that first running up in Queensland at the Flight Centre Epic, I’ve wanted to have a good race one year.
It looks like I’ll have to keep waiting.
In 2006 it was The Year of the Flat. My total for the race was about eight, including the one I crossed the line with. I certainly wasn’t a contender, not by a long shot. But finishing an hour down on my targeted time was a bit gutting.
2007 didn’t really happen. I was probably trying to get my head around dealing with the encroaching UK winter at the time. My solution involved week long monstor blocks in Provence and Andalucia I believe.
2008 and 2009 involved competing at the British Marathon Championships. The difference here being a 4 lap marathon, and also a closed Championship. That is, passport holders only. In 2008 I snuck in, and received a nasty call from British Cycling afterwards. In 2009 it was a no go, so along with an RSA and NZ National we took the T-shirts from the non-licenced riders.
2010, and I was set to head to the Nemesis Marathon in Avoca, Victoria. But the opportunity for an impromptu trip to Europe to watch the classics and train with mates came about. What would you do?
And so here we are in 2011. A Marathon Championship on a new course, from an established race promoter. I’m there.
The hope was to hit it with killer form, and have the chance to see how I go against a great field of Australian XC and Marathon talent. A benchmark of sorts. Two things held this back. Firstly, my form can be best described as sub-optimal this year. And the talented field? Well it was there, but just not as deep as it could have been.
Not being able to pre-ride the course was a little bit odd. But as the whole Mt Joyce Recreation Park is still a construction site, fair enough. Thankfully we had hard hats on, I hear a lot had to be done to allow us to race without longsleeve jerseys and steel capped shoes.
Grassy fields – love them, hate them – whatever. If it’s in the race you just have to deal with them. That’s the nature of marathon racing. It can never be all stunning trails. The quality of the race isn’t determined by the trail, but by the racers and organisation of the event. This has been confirmed for me countless times over the years.
The start was ok, nothing too fast. Even the climb through the feedzone was pretty settled. The first singletrack climb carried on for a while. Although it wasn’t supersteep – it wasn’t flat. I had settled into what felt about 20th wheel. And I figured this must have been the main climb. The 20km (for the lap) to go sign was a bit of a shock. After a descent and another climb and descent, the uber-berg presented itself, and I was back to being a whipping boy for the 28×36 setup.
After the first lap I figured I was doing poorly enough that I would get pulled at the end of the second, or probably DNF. I don’t like doing it, but it seemed like the most probable result. In the end, the second lap was ok. I’d stopped to re-adjust the suspension front and rear. Yeah, this was 100% non-pro. But as I’d said to th eventual Bronze Medallist, Shaun Lewis, before the start:
“Be fast or look fast Shaun. You take care of one, I’ll take care of the other.”
The MarathonMTB.com Team kit looks great, but it doesn’t mean I’m great at getting my bike setup dialled when my enthusiasm is low!
Regardless, with less Terralogic platform up front, and more rebound damping out back on my Spark, I no longer felt like I was going to get bucked off the mountain. The second lap was actually fun! The singletrack network that is developing up here is certainly a great resource for those in South East Queensland.
Lap three came around, and I could see team mate Graeme Arnott ahead. For a bloke who hadn’t been on the bike for a couple of weeks, he was riding pretty strongly. Coming through the paddock purgatory section, a fellow racer commented:
“Mate, it looks like you’re sgtarting to blow a bit.”
His mental game was short but sweet. It was a verbal catalyst, and then and there I did blow. Hard. All those little switches you turn off when racing flicked back as suddenly as a safety switch does when digging your toast out of the toaster. My feet had hot spots, I needed to go to the toilet, I was hungry, thirsty, bloated, and sore all over. Plus I couldn’t really maintain focus on anything. WIth one SIS caffeine gel in the pocket for the lap, things looked grim. I stopped. I took some ‘me time’ with a nature break. But I climbed back aboard my bike with a wince and pedalled, trying to regain some mental focus, and not fall off. There were already people badly injured, I certainly didn’t want to be another on the list.
Somehow, I made it up the climbs, and down the descents in one piece. Coming into the finish chute I was pretty grateful to be done, and even more grateful to eat some fresh mandarins. This is my new post-race fruit of choice. Don’t warry watermelon, you may still win me back.
My place for the day? 9th in the end, in Open Mens. As far as numbers go, it reads well. In reality, the field was thinned through crashes, and Victorians fear of flying (I’m guessing. AJ made the trip afterall).
So a great Marathon National Championships benchmark still needs to be set, where will it be in 2012?