I've been pretty busy lately as the student life starts to catch up on me. With the threat of mock exams I spent 6 weeks mostly locked away studying with occasional fitness breaks to help maintain my sanity, and absolutely NO RACING.
In some ways it has been good to take a break, as it helps get your head in order. After a long season that stretched over 6 months, switching from XC to Multisport then to long distance XC, my legs jsut needed a rest, and those 6 weeks offered exactly that; a chance to maintain my fitness but not put my mind and body through the pressures that training to be the best entails. It's been good.
But, a restless spirit such as myself can only hold out for so long. I don't agree with going completely cold turkey of the addictive cocktail of adrenaline, endorphins and screaming muscles that constitutes the drug known as racing, so with a hiatus from study before the final push at the end of the year IO decided to have one last try.
This is why I maintained some of my fitness. If there's one thing I hate more than missing out on competition, it's competing and getting my ass kicked. Egotistical? Yeah. Petty? Probably. But it is this drive to succeed that has carried me through my competitive life with a modicum of success so why stop what works? My secret weapon at present has been getting into running. Highly transferable with cycling fitness due to similar muscles being used, and easy to do with high rewards for shorter sessions. So, armed with 2 sets of trainers and a choice selection of foot paths and fields, I set out to race my school cross country.
Cross country and I have a strange relationship to say the least. My first ever race was school cross country, where I finished a credible 7th. It all went downhill form there though as I was always that guy who was pretty proud to not come last. Cross country was a compulsory event up until year 10, and my year 9 self was convinced I would never race cross country again. Then I tried this crazy thing called puberty, started getting good and sport and never looked back. It has always been one of those ghosts on my record sheet though. Forever doomed to take a series of second and third places, it seemed that it was one nut I would not cracked. I wanted to change that.
I knew who the competition were, and I knew what they were capable of. I also knew what I was capable of and that I had fitness to work with. Thanks to my fledgling career in Multisport I have been forced to work on running fitness and technique, and with this has come a huge increase in speed and endurance. Armed with this, I entered into school cross country with the single track mind that had served me so well through my cycling escapades so far.
Essentially a few laps around a muddy field, cross country is not a technically demanding race at my school. However, the 3km length means that it is too long to sprint, but not long enough for endurance runners to take a lead. It was here we would test our mettle and, if all went to plan I would have used my last chance to successfully scratch this one off the list.
To put it simply, I won by a literal mile. Somehow finishing 40 seconds ahead of second place with plenty more left in the tank made it all seem a little too easy. Bursting off the line and disappearing out of sight before anyone really realised I was ahead was a little too easy for my liking. Of course, there were all the excuses of "I wasn't really trying" on the faces of some shocked looking competitors (who if rumors were to believed secretly had thought they would win easily), but despite this it was a slaughtering and to be honest took all the fun out of it. I am a sucker for a fight to the death that comes down to a bloody, frenzied sprint finish, but it was not to be. Running a race with plenty left in the tank, without being pushed, was not enough. I wanted to see what I could really do.
Fast forward two weeks and we arrive to the final of the Xterra Auckland Trail Running series. 6 km long in the lovely Hunua Ranges, here I chose to take another shot at getting that kick that only comes from a hard race. Against seasoned veterans of the trail running world with four races of preparation behind them, I prepared to do battle. I had no idea how I compared to everyone else there. All I knew is that the majority looked tall, lean, and fast. Remember, dear reader, to never judge a book by its cover.
From the start I found myself in the top 5 right from the gun. Within 500 metres we had narrowed it down to 4. At the 1 km mark the 1st placed runner was building a lead and I found myself chasing in 2nd place, and building a lead on 3rd and 4th. Setting the kind of pace that made school cross country look like a light jog, this was what I had been waiting for; this was a proper race.
The first 2 kilometers were gravel road, where the pace stayed high. After this I knew there was to be 3 km of singletrack before the final sprint back to the finish. Entering the single track I hit my straps and began doing some damage. Catching up to 1st on a climb, we began a game of slingshot where I would pull ahead on a technical climb or decent, and get caught when the trail flattened out a little again. And so it went through the trail for 3 km. By the time we hit the roads again I had built up around 15 metres lead and was running in first. It was not to last as despite my power through the single track, the former race leader regained his throne and pulled away in the final kilometer back to the race village and the finish line.
In the end I finished 8 seconds off the top step of the podium. This left me not just 2nd in my age group, but 2nd overall out of everyone racing that distance, against some of the fastest trail runners in the region. This was the race I needed, and it was the race I got. It is a nice reminder to know I can still aim high at sport and actually hit the targets I set for myself.
With that said and done, I am now better prepared for my last push of the year; my final exams. Wish me luck everyone, and I'll see you soon.
Robin
