New Zealand Sprint Champs, Kinloch 3rd February 2007
Good morning,
Well for those that don't have the luxury of the having a long weekend!! sorry if you get this email on Monday morning. But just think tomorrow you can sleep in again! Yesterday was the New Zealand Sprint championships in Kinloch Taupo.
Firstly this is a "RACE", We have been wanting a course like this for ages in New Zealand and the team in Taupo did themselves proud with this little beauty. When we arrived we were greeted with a beautiful calm lake. The water was crystal clear and quite warm for Taupo.
The swim was a fast paced 750m long. I was sure this was going to be my biggest test with the lack or swimming I had been doing. Things didn't go to bad and I was out of the lake in the top ten. I hit the bike running and just couldn't wait to get on my Avanti team corsa and take it around the the streets of Kinloch.
The course was 3 laps of 6.35k with a beast of a hill 560 meters long at a gradient of 18 percent that you needed at least a 25 to just turn the wheels over... After all the cycling I had been doing prior to the tour for SUBWAY I knew this was my biggest chance to push for the win. And so the first time up the climb I attacked and rode up to the race leaders and then attacked again up the road. I arrived back at transition to the start of the second lap with a 15 second advantage.
Then Bevan Docherty and Graham O'Grady saw the danger and jumped across to me during this lap. We arrived at the hill again and Bevan rode strong this time and we dropped Graham. It was like this for the rest of the bike myself and Bevan taking turns even on the last climb as we headed to the run. Running has been on the backburner for myself at the start of this season so far. And Bevan is a class runner.
I knew I was going to have to run out of my skin to hang with him on his home turf. He got away from me right from the start and had 20seconds after the first of two 2.5k laps. I dug deep and got him back to 11 seconds at the finish to be second in my first race of the season. It was what I had expected could happen and if anything I was surprised how well I ran with the limited sessions at that kind of intensity( or any intensity for that matter!!).
It's amazing how a challenging course like that can really show you where the work needs to be done. When there's no place to hide on a course like that it will just chew you up and and spit you out if you have not done the work beforehand....it's as simple as that. Hope everyone is well and enjoy your day off on Tuesday for those in NZ. I'm off to the Snowfarm a top of the Cardrona valley for some altitude training for 16 days on Friday so looking forward to that. A great place to train and get ready for the fast approaching opening world cups.
Cheers. Kris