About me

I've been riding and racing my mountain bikes since 2009 at the same time as studying a medical degree, I tried a training plan once and realised I hate intervals with a passion so instead I just ride and race and enjoy...

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Flinging the Fling....


The Fling is a race that I never feel prepared for, the first year I entered in 2011 we had just bought a house and training had fallen by the wayside. It was horrendously painful and I discovered what “cramps” really means when those stricken riders on the side of the trail utter it. Oh yeah, cramps that year from about the 75km mark and I just limped home.
2012 was better, but I’d got the dark and gloomies over winter and had fallen off the training wagon. With just a couple of months I pulled out a substantially better time but still felt I wasn’t at my best.
2013 was going to be the year, I was going to train through winter and hit the Fling at my best. Unfortunately before I could hit the fling an idiot driver hit me and July was all about hospitals and healing. Despite being back on the roadie relatively quickly I really had done very little mountain biking and for some reason, the Fling seems to require mountain bike miles in the legs for me. With just the Half Kowalski and the Scott as my only decent mountain bike rides since the accident things weren’t looking good.
Setting up camp in sunshine got our hopes up
Oh and then there’s this medical degree, the one with the final exam of the whole degree scheduled just three days after the Fling. That one little hurdle standing between me and the title “Dr”, suddenly the whole Fling training plan was well and truly off the rails and I swapped out of elite back down to age group racing.
The lead into the Fling involved a lot of the usual weather watching on BOM, the forecast went from horrendous to horrible to bad to sketchy and finally it looked like the rain would hold off until the day of the race itself.
Indeed we packed in Newcastle in 36-degree heat, making it hard to think about cold weather riding and even set up camp in sunshine. We hoped the Bureau of Meteorology had got things completely wrong but they knew a little more than we’d been hoping and race day dawned grey and cold with a fine misty highland drizzle to accompany the traditional bagpipe wake-up call.
Race morning was definitely fleece pants and down vest weather
Waiting on the start line was cold, I got the shivers listening to race briefing but was briefly distracted by the guy next to me discovering that the rain on his tyres simply meant he could see heaps of lovely air leaks bubbling away. Then finally we were off and the usual shemozzle of self-seeding started to sort itself out.
My legs felt dead, completely dead like riding with concrete muscles – I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bad in a race. I kept hoping I would warm up and come good, but even half an hour in I was still feeling crap. I passed Charlie McCabe early on and wished her well in the 100mile event as the only female entrant, I didn’t envy her as the weather continue to be grey and wet.
After the first river crossing or two I definitely couldn’t feel my feet, and my mood wasn’t improving at all. I had mentally admitted defeat in the race when I changed categories and I was even considering pulling out at the first transition through Wingello. The GUs that had freely flowed into my flask in the Newcastle heat were now refusing to leave the flask at my request and I had drunk next to nothing for the first hour of the race.
At Wingello I swapped to a camelbak and single GU packets, ate some food and pushed on. The legs weren’t improving, but the 29er wheels rolled well on the firetrail and I hooked onto a train. Then we hit singletrack and it was obvious the blokes up the front were roadies – finding out your bars don’t fit between trees at speed was the first sign, and walking the rocks was the next.
A few of us made it past these roadies and in the next section of single track I found myself chatting to Lana Moy’s other half Greg who would keep me company for the next hour or so. Sometime after the next feed station he dropped off and myself and a South African bloke seemed to be keeping similar pace. We got chatting and told similar stories – dead feeling legs, no motivation, suffering.
Having company made things a whole lot better, we fell into a rhythm – I’d let him go first on firetrail descents and I’d soon catch him on ascents when he would then stick on my wheel.
We ticked off the obstables, The Wall, Halfway Hill and a whole lot of hills in-between that I swear multiply every year. The elite men came through around half way hill, Mark Tupalski was just launching an attack and looking strong. Soon we onto the smooth road into Wingello for the second time, my South African mate mentioned pulling the pin and I secretly groaned at the thought of loosing my riding companion.
Luckily he changed his mind and after refuelling we set off again for the last and most brutal stage of the race. The bumpy descent through the paddock to the first single track was not fun as that kind of stuff still hurts my bung arm and wrist but soon I had other things to worry about as my left inner thigh cramped in exactly the same bit of single track as 2011! Refusing to stop I spun that leg easy while putting power through my right and it seemed to ease, but I was dreading that section of "rollercoaster" in reverse with all the little pinch climbs.
Concentrating on smooth pedalling we slogged on as the mist was turning more and more to rain, the temperature averaged about 11 degrees for the whole race and we did spare a thought for the previous year when the sun was baking hot through some of those later sections of firetrail.
Veteran Female Podium
I starting pulling gaps on my South African mate, whose name I still hadn’t learnt and whose number had fallen off and was stuffed down his jersey for safekeeping. I entered the single track ahead of him but knew I’d be walking those pinch climbs after Boundary Rider. Each time I walked those climbs he’d catch me and so we ended up together again grovelling up the hill to a choir sheltering under a marquee. We entered the last section of single track to the perfect harmony of these local voices, by this stage both legs were cramping on sharp or sustained climbs but it was still just my inner thighs so I could mostly ride through it.
Veteran Female Full Fling
By this time we were overtaking half-flingers very regularly, the track was showing signs of the extra traffic and constant drizzle and was pretty slippery over roots and rocks in places. The half-flingers were quick to give track and soon we hit the last dreaded hill, endless grassy switch backs up a paddock.
Spinning smoothly I managed to keep the cramps at bay knew that I was pretty much home, again I lost my South African friend through the last section of singletrack and also let the first Elite female, Peta Mullins come through.
The final 5 or so kilometres are firetrail and road, and they ticked painfully by until I was finally heading down through the last farm towards the finish. Finally the finishing arch appeared and – wet, cold and filthy – I could tick off yet another Fling with inadequate preparation.
Celebrating the end of a long year and long degree
I was on the lookout for my South African buddy but the cold got the better of me and I headed back to camp for some warm clothes before a feed and hanging round for the podium presentation. Despite what felt like a shocking day on the bike, and being 10 minutes slower than the previous year, I had won my age category and had a time that would put me at 4th overall female.
In the usual way of happy endings, my South African riding companion managed to find me on facebook – thanks Gary for making the day bearable. I’m not sure I would have persevered without the company!
I also passed my exam three days later and have now finally finished five long years of undergraduate medicine and will start work as a doctor next year. The learning is far from over, some would say it’s just beginning, but the idea of a full time wage is pretty exciting and Tim’s already calculating how many bikes I owe him ;-)