Galaxy Travel NDuro Race 3

My alarm clock is a zombie. Not only does it make people stagger around looking dazed and groaning meaninglessly when it gets its teeth into them, it also infects other devices with this ability. The most recent victim of this would have to be my phone; it too is now capable of waking the dead with its increasingly loud early morning moan. Early in the morning before NDuro Race 3, this quality is both a gift and a curse. With 5 hours a day of exams and a slowly brewing cold throughout the week sleep is a much sought after asset, but being late for a race has disastrous consequences. So, I submitted to this old routine and got ready to race 45km through Rotorua's Whakarewarewa forest.

Now, I didn't have high hopes leading up to this race with a couple of misfortunes in the week leading up.
1) As aforementioned, exams and illness had taken a lot out of me in the week leading up.
2) Riding on Saturday I was absolutely delighted to discover the cage of my front dérailleur had SNAPPED, and was now dropping chains inside, outside and in between. However, this has only gone to prove yet again that epoxy and cable ties can fix anything, even mountain bikes. All hail the cable tie!

Ra had taken a different approach to planning this particular NDuro course, with the first 10-15km of the race being fire road and the odd patch of singletrack snaking it's way up towards Split Enz trail rather than throwing us through the lower trail system first. This worked to my advantage for a little while, as I was holding on to a group pretty fast riders including my competition for this race. This lasted until the climbs got longer and steeper where my cold began to kick in and they began to pull away... Sometime during these climbs we were passed by the first of the 30km riders including Cosmo in 3rd place, having a blindingly good race. The extra loop the 45km riders had to do past the green lake had left the 30min head start null and void; the race was on.

For a while I rode with fellow sprockets rider Alex West, before pulling away through Split Enz, Pondy Downhill and Pondy New. But, at around the 30km mark, we hit Old Chevy and my energy levels dropped faster than the fuel gauge on a muscle car. Alex overtook me at this point, and somehow went on to win the race. Well done Alex! Chinese menu didn't leave me hungry for more as rider after rider passed by. I wasn't happy to realise that this would soon be followed by a nice long climb up direct road to the start of Hot X Bun. To a virus ridden, depleted teenager even the promise of some awesome downhill wasn't enough to get those legs spinning at the pace I would have liked, and it wasn't until Dragon's Tale that I managed to put some straight line speed on again. I rode the last few km home with a blocked nose, hazy mind and feeling very, very tired.  

I wasn't the only one with troubles out on the course though. Aaron Carr, after having a fast, hard fought race, snapped a chain in the last 10km or so without a spare chain link, and so was born the new sport "mountain scootering." I think it might catch on... Tom Coombes pulled out a strong performance finishing 3rd in sprockets, and yours truly finished in 5th, unfortunately out of contention for an overall placing.

In the 30km course Cosmo continued his performance from earlier on and finished an incredible 3rd over all, and first in the sprockets category. Kim Wright, struck down sick like me, finished in 4th place, doing just well enough to secure the series win in sprockets category, whilst still squeezing into top 15 over all. Kerran Tetley managed to take 5th in sprockets, not far off the pace of his competitors.  Jemma Manchester finished first in her age group, however having jumped between the 30km and 45km event throughout the season was not in the running for a series title.

In the 15km Jessica Manchester won both her age group AND gender category, in 5th over all taking out the title, as well as a whole host of other goodies through spot prizes. Finn Welsford-Ackroyd came in fourth in the sprockets category, only a few minutes off the leader, with Jeevan Gossage Krishnan not too far behind in 10th over all; a great effort from both of them. Isobel Welsford-Ackroyd and William Page both finished top 20 overall, bringing the JAFAKIDS results to a close.

Reminiscing time. From this race I gained a couple of things:
1) An insight on what I need to work on for the next few months.
2) A Switch Up GPS sports watch courtesy of Magellan GPS as the lucky winner of a spot prize. To do this I may have had to outrun and out jump a few shorter people, much like a certain Nintendo character. Apologies to anyone trampled by a horde of teenagers and children trying to get hold of a cool piece of equipment. Look for a review in the next few weeks.

3) That the curse of four no longer exists, as I got 5th...
4) I did this race without ice cream for breakfast. I didn't do as well as I usually do. Conclusion: Ice cream is good for athletes. FACT.

A big thank you to Ra and the team at NDuro events for putting the series on, don't stop the little touches like baking and cold ginger beer at the finish line. They make a good event great. Thank you also to the volunteers who help out at these events, and all the riders who show up to make these races possible! Se you all at the Whaka100!