I was too tired to be gleeful when my racing year ended two weeks ago, but now that a bit of time’s passed, I’ve been enjoying looking back on it all, so much that I thought I’d write about it.
I’m calling it my racing year, rather than my season, because in Australia, and especially if you travel overseas for the northern hemisphere’s summer, there’s very little break in racing. I suppose that’s just a reflection of how lucky we are with our climate – we can, and do, race year-round.
Racing isn’t always fun. You can do too much!
This year, for me, was never about getting results. Having taken a year off study and moved to Sydney to have a crack at freelance writing (focusing on MTB), this year was about saying yes to everything, and if there’s anything I’ve learned it’s that saying yes a lot slows your legs down. While I started out with some lofty goals, I quickly realised that the sheer volume of travel and racing I’d signed up for were inconsistent with going fast. While I’ve done more racing than ever before, I’ve probably ridden fewer miles, and certainly taken much more time off, than in any other of my twelve years of racing.
What a summer! These booties are going in the bin
That said, with the time I’ve spent on my own beautiful Bianchi bikes, plus a series of different test bikes (many of them designed for women), my technical skills (and knowledge) have improved out of sight, as has my confidence. The number of Aussie marathons and stage races I did enriched my race craft, and my six weeks at altitude enduring Europe’s most disappointing summer in living memory toughened me up to ANY conditions: rain, mud, snow, ice – you name it, I’ll ride it without complaint. Once I get my legs back, I’ve no doubt I’ll look back on this year as a valuable one…
Mud. I really came to understand it.
I also got much better at writing, and did a lot of blushing at really lovely feedback from readers. Hearing that people have read stuff that I’ve written and enjoyed it, or found motivation from it, is just as good as podium finishes, if not better.
Here’s a look at my year in numbers.
I did a whopping 45 days racing, comprised of a handful of XCO races, a lot of marathons, and five stage races. I have done no road racing or criteriums this year at all, and I missed the CX races I used to do in Brisbane, so most of these 45 races were between 3 and 6 hours long. That’s a lot of race time!
Another day, another race number!
I don’t have the energy to count it all up, but I can confidently estimate that I’ve spent over a third of this year away from home, travelling for mountain biking, including that six-week trip to Europe, and several trips a few weeks long to Australia’s top MTB destinations: Tropical North Queensland, Alice Springs, the Snowy Mountains and the Victorian Alps. I didn’t visit Tasmania, South Australia, or Western Australia this year, but they’re on the calendar for next year.
Alice Springs – one of my favourite places to ride.
I’ve done at least 10 extremely wet races, most of them in Poland, and have destroyed three sets of kit and gone through two front and one rear XTR derailleurs (don’t ask), four XTR chains, one XT cassette, one XTR cassette, three sets of XTR brake pads, three lower jockey wheels, one set of Leonardi chain rings, five sets of Maxxis tyres, two ultra-light Mt Zoom headset top caps (don’t ask about those either) and four bottom brackets.
But just one set of pedals!
I’ve raced in temperatures above 30 degrees about 15 times. Most of these races were in Australia. I’m pretty good at managing fluid intake but I’d say I was properly dehydrated once during the longest stage of the Croc Trophy in Qld (130km), but resolved it as soon as I finished.
I’ve raced below 10 degrees about 3 times – most of these races were in Europe. In summer! I only had mild hypothermia once, on a four-hour training ride in Livigno. A storm came in with two hours to go, and at over 2,000 metres, it was pretty cold. A long hot shower, fluids, and a good meal (pasta of course) sorted it out.
The hard stuff
I had one DNS (did not start) at the Kowalski Classic – after returning from Europe, and trying to freshen up for the Croc, I decided not to race.
Worst of all, I’ve managed five DNFs (did not finish) this year. A couple were club races, but three were important marathons. The most painful, both physically and psychologically, was pulling out of my main race goal for the year, Grand Raid, with just 15km to go (after already riding 110km). I had severe heartburn, which made it difficult to breathe, and I actually thought I was having an asthma attack. I was sitting in 10th place, and all I had to do to qualify for World Marathon Champs in 2015 was finish, but I couldn’t. That said, my advice is never, ever pull out of a point-to-point marathon unless you live nearby. It took me 7 hours to get home from the top of that mountain and I was forced to wear a plastic poncho – serves me right!
Creeping and cold! European ‘summer’ took its toll
Some stats
I don’t record everything I do on my Magellan, so these numbers are just what I downloaded:
Total distance: 12,652km
Total climbing: 189,303m
Top speed: 104.55km/h (I’m suspicious of this recording, going down from Thredbo to Jindabyne – I only saw about 85km/h, but I was looking where I was going, too)
Countries visited: 7
And some other conversation pieces…
Photo shoots: 12
Number of new scars: 4 – one from some very sharp rock in Alice Springs, where I crashed during a time trial stage, two from the horrid wait-o-while- plant in Tropical North Queensland, and one last week when I went down on a sneaky root on a casual ride, opening up an old scar. I average about three new scars a year… needless to say, my knees aren’t pretty!
Pages in print: About 100
Hashtag-worthy controversies: 1
Wins: One – Easter in the Alice, not counting stage race stages, or the Croc, where I had no competition!
Best races: Anything in Alice Springs, Sudety MTB Challenge in Poland for the sheer craziness of it, Mt Joyce Marathon National Champs, for the brutal track and the electrical storm at the finish line, and the Crocodile Trophy, for its blend of Euro racing in a deeply Australian setting.
How has your year been? Let us know
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