Takapuna race report March 2011
Hi Ladies and Gents,
I've had most of this race report in my inbox for a week or so now. But with all that has happened, in terms of the disaster in Christchurch I needed some time to gather my thoughts.
I would like to start by saying that after spending nearly 8 years of my life in Chrischurch and having alot of my family there, the events of last week have been pretty hard to understand let alone imagine. Once the most beautiful city in New Zealand, Chch is now turned upside down on its head. The loss of life is tragic, and the amount of damage will take days, weeks, years to repair. However, the resolve of the people in Christchurch I know so well is already shinning through, and with the help of everyone in New Zealand and offerings of assistance from around the world I know that Cantabrians will be back on there feet in no time!
That said a group of us are currently training at the Snowfarm in the Cardrona valley are also trying our best to help out. We were always coming here to train before the National and Oceania championships in Wellington. It was meant to be a small group, but of course with everything in Christchurch, and athletes unable to train there, the group has swelled. The athletes directly effected, are all doing their best with all that is going on in Christchurch. And to try and make them feel less helpless from down here. Myself and a friend have decided to orginise a small fun run for everyone in and around central Otago, with them, and all the olympic athletes currently training here. The hope of course, is to raise some much needed funds for the people of Canterbury. And everyone that has been effected by the earthquake disaster.
I've attached the basic press release, and if you all could help spread the word at such short notice it would be really helpful. You can also contact me on 0212646369 or Steve Gould +64212282644 for any more information in the days ahead.
Kind regards,
Kris
Now the race..... or was it the SLOG!;-)
WOW!! the three peat was on, for all but half a meter before the line... cheers Bevan! But really a great race, and always love getting pushed to the limit like that. Here's a short break down for you all from behind the scenes of what you may not have "seen" or "heard" on the TV! and for all those living outside the boudaries of New Zealand.
So my first race of the season is in the bank! Was a really hard fought battle that ended up with myself and Bevan Docherty going head to head in front of an amazing crowd that I really believe are fast becoming puritsts of our sport. There is a clear understanding of how hard we push ourselves during the race. And how that effort is only the glorified pain that they "can see" versus that which we spend hours upon hours, training from dawn to dusk behind the scenes.
It's also the fact they understand where our training is, and how hard it is to get up for a race like that at this time of the year. But they know we will give nothing less than 110% to make a race of it. We all know its an important year with olympic qualification, and in August we will see how the preperation has gone. But we live in the now, and so Takapuna meant racing off a big base phase of endurance training. Taking that, and turning it into a fast paced version of fun, was well...... HARD!
So to the race itself. When I break it down, there were many encouraging aspects. The days before I was very very tired! I knew I would be so there was no real surprises. However. I was really relaxed and knew no matter what I'd done, the race would just pan out as it would.
I had a great start and got out in front early in the 500m swim. I managed to get out of the water 3rd right beside Bevan, and 10 seconds behind swim fish Dylan Mcneice. Then comes the first vital part of this exciting race. The big hill we have to run up after the swim into transition! Its a very tough swim exit, and I knew from the last two years, it always leads to chances of an early break going away. I ran as fast as I could towards T1. I arrived at my bike with Bev in toe. I had a slightly better transition, and jumped on my BLUE AC1 and went about catching Dylan who was the up the road. Once I arrived to his wheel, I took a quick look back to see a frieght train arrving in the form of Bevan and hanging on his back wheel for dear life was young star Eddie Rawles. We'd opened up a small gap of only 8 seconds after lap one on a big chase group.
There were 10 laps of a 1.6 k loop, each lap had 8 sharp corners and 1 dead turn. Needlees to say the power meter was going to get a work out today! The four of us were fully committed from lap one, and I never really felt like we took our foot of the gas for the rest of the ride. The gap didn't go out much for the first three laps or so, but gradually we started to wear the chase pack down and gained some time on them. Bevan was really strong and caused everyone to hurt bad with Dylan getting dropped on lap 4. Down to three now, and even less recovery between turns. My legs were not as good as Bev's today, so I had to struggle to keep his pace more than I would have liked. But when you are riding that hard you know everyone is hurting to some extent.
Heading into the second tranistion we had managed to get a gap of just over 40 seconds on the chase group. The effort we had put in was most likely going to be more than enough. But we were still to run and the most fun was still about to happen.
As we hit T2 we all had pretty good bike to run transitions. The best actually was young Eddie! He hit the ground running, and bolted out of T2 with myself and Bevan a few meters back in pursuit. I really hurt big time over the first K, and Bev gapped me a couple of times. He also was digging pretty deep, and any surge of mine was met with his own counter punch! Its hard to explain how that seems when you racing side by side at this stage of our build up, but I'll try.
Imagine you are a car, you have 6 gears and a big engine! You try to push ( surge) but you are just stuck in 4th or 5th gear. The rev limiter is banging against the red line, and you cant change to increase your speed. It might not seem this way when you watching, but I assure you when we are doing the type of training to go really fast! you will see what an acceleration is. So this is why the run was so hard for the both of us. It was clear that we were both maxed out very early. We could have gone slightly faster but it would have been at a huge cost so early on. Every-time someone applied some pressure, it didnt really last for long before you felt the other had responded. I know Bev so well, and he knows me! so with 1k to go we both knew what was coming up after all. I've of course been in this situation before, we both have. Many times we've simulated this in one way or another in training and of course in racing. You never really know what the outcome will be. But I'm always willing to try something new, in a situation where I can learn from it for the big events to come. This time I decided to wait for Bev to start the sprint. Normally I wouldn't do this as I have a better initial burst of speed. But by waiting I was looking at a drag race of power and strength. I needed to test myself like this, and I was also unsure how long he'd wait to let loose to the line. For everyone who saw it, it was basically two blokes balls out for 80 meters towards a line!! It wasn't pretty, and Bev hit the line half a meter in front of myself. We both collapsed after the finish, and were breathing like there would be no more air on earth! It took a lot out of myself, but sounded like I wasn't alone..
So basically everyone got what they wanted. A head to head race that lasted until the bitter end. I'm sure everyone enjoyed it, and I'm not going to lie, I certainly did also!
Cheers,
Kris