Briars Highland Fling

The Briars Highland Fling is the last XC marathon race of the year and for the past two years it has also been the final event in the hotly contested Real Insurance XCM series. It's held in the Southern Highlands town of Bundanoon not too far from Sydney and Canberra and attracts a large and very strong field of riders.

A week out from the event and the forecast was looking terrible, 30-50mm of rain was forecast over the days before the race and we started discussing the merits of mud tyres and wet lube. However the forecast models were revised and revised and in the end less than 10mm of rain fell in the week prior leaving the tracks dry and even on the dusty side of ideal.

Last year my lead up to this event was suboptimal, we'd just bough and moved into our first house and painting, tradies and house maintenance had usurped riding in the priority list. The result was a race time over 6 hours, the last two of which were spent with both legs cramping on anything that resembled a hill. The aim this year was to improve...

Camping at the Fling is great, there's 5-star grass and they are super organised in allocation as you arrive so late comers don't disturb people by driving all round camp. Waking up to a 4-degree morning however was a little chilly! The start chute and self seeding was the usual affair, a lot of people overestimate their fitness and place themselves high up the start order only to get passed by hundreds of other riders during the day. The Fling however has minimal single track and loads of firetrail in the first  30km so this has minimal effect.

I snuck into the start chute next to Di Perry who helped me shuffle forward to a position maybe 200 hundred riders from the start. As a result I did a lot more passing than being passed throughout the race but I never felt like I got delayed so it was probably not a bad position.

A bit chilly but a dry track!

Stage one is 27-odd kms to Wingello, with such a chilly start I opted for armwarmers but probably could have left them off. The sun was out and the sky was blue, a fast tempo along the road to start soon got me warm and the warmers got pulled down pretty quickly. The rolling hills sort the field out pretty quickly and then suddenly you're at the free bike wash, a knee deep creek which freezes your feet just after they've finally got blood flow.

Then there's a paddock section, it's rough and bumpy and the 26" hardtail was making things tough. I was envious of the 29er duallys rolling past until I saw a guy on a fully rigid and figured maybe I should take a bit of concrete and drop the princess act. Coming into Wingello oval you get 5 minutes to head through transition and cross the railway, I used this time to drop my bottle and grab a new one and pick up my camelbak for the 52km Shimano stage.

The Shimano stage is mixture of firetrail and some of the famed Wingello singletrack, it also contains the infamous hills "the wall" and "halfway hill". Despite the sign warning you of "the wall" even preemptive granny gearing doesn't save you as it hits 20% at points. I jumped off and walked as I knew trying to ride it would just leave me trying to recover for the next 5km. At this point I was leapfrogging Libby Adamson, one of the six female riders tackling the 100mile event.

Single track in the final stage

The single track in Wingello is swoopy and fun with a few trees to keep those on wide-bars on 29ers on their toes. It's a welcome relief from the high paced fireroads with their numerous climbs, but all of a sudden a sign indicates you've reached halfway hill - one of the longest climbs of the race. This year we got 2/3rds of the way up and instead of turning left and continuing on up, we dropped over the back and hit another hill for the KOM/QOM point. At this point the elite men were coming past as the Fling is unique in that the elite field start 40 minutes behind the rest of the riders. It was good to see the elite were finding this every bit as tough as I was, even if they were going a whole lot faster.

Fantastic single track but hard with tired legs!

The climb was followed by a section of double track along the edge of a pine forest that I didn't remember from the previous year, it was deceptively smooth looking but bumpy as hell and with 60-odd kms in the legs it was hard to maintain any decent average. Finally tho the flat groomed road appeared which leads back to Wingello for a second time. I jumped on the back of a train of 4 guys but soon moved to the front to up the pace, one of them stuck with me and we pulled turns until the nagging pain just above me knee forced me to ease off a bit. I'm not sure how much of a wind break I give a large man on a 29er but hey, when he took his turns it was great for me :-)

Coming into Wingello my leg was giving me grief, it wasn't my knee but just above it and I wasn't sure exactly what I'd done. In the end I decided that while it was painful, it wasn't cramping and it wasn't the knee joint itself so I decided to suck it up and ride through it.

Wingello a second time and I dumped my camelbak and picked up a full bottle for the last 32km stage. Now at the 80km point in most marathons you feel like you're almost home, at the 85km point in the Convict 100km you know it's all downhill to the finish. But at the 80km point in the Fling you have 32km of some of the toughest stuff still to come.

After some fireroad out of transition and another horrible bit of bone-rattling paddock it was across a creek and into single track. Here I passed a rider down, he looked in a bad way with potential rib and collarbone injuries but he had several others helping him and they waved me on. I wish him all the best for a speedy recovery!

 

Out of single track and onto logging roads and I started to pass numerous Half-Flingers, these guys were hurting and walking a lot of the track yet they called out encouragement and let me know I was the first female they'd seen. Woot! So I was the first female age-group rider through, the elites were still behind me and would be faster but that was an immense confidence boost. My aim was to get home before the elite, I had a 40 minute head start but with Jenny Fay in  incredible form it was going to be tough.

Apparently it was dusty on course!

At the 90km point the single track starts again with Rollercoaster in reverse, this means lots of nasty little pinches that are intended to be ridden in the opposite direction. This is cramp city, and sure enough the second pinch brought on the tell-tale muscle twitches in my left inner thigh. I quickly jumped off the bike and walked every pinch, knowing that if I could stop the cramps becoming established I still had a chance to spin home.

Across the natural ford and up the final firetrail climb in the easiest gear possible, so far so good - the cramps were holding off. Into the final single track which was loose and dusty and probable some of the most technical track in the course. The half-flingers I was passing were walking a lot of it, probably partly because of the faster full-flinging traffic coming through. Then you hit that grassy paddock of a climb, once again I got into granny gear and concentrated on smooth spinning. No sudden power stroked, just smooth motions - phew made it to the top and no cramps.

Those timing mats can't come soon enough

A fast descent through a paddock and you're almost back on firetrail, then I hear a female voice calling track on the rider being me. Jenny Fay zooms past in a cloud of dust and I realise I've not quite made it home before the elites. About 10 minutes later on "your call" Peta Mullens came through for what turned out to be a fairly close finish.

Full Fling Veteran Women Podium

Suddenly you're onto a road and the end is nigh, only 4km to go and mostly flat or downhill. One last bone rattling paddock dumps you down in a gully where you cross under a road and can now hear the event centre. The next thing I'm crossing the line, 5:37 official race time but 10 minutes more on the bike due to the two 5 minute transitions. Third female across the line but of course the elite behind me are faster due to their later start.

In the end I cut 30 minutes of my 2011 time, despite the course being 3km longer and arguably harder in the Shimano stage. I was the fastest non-elite female home and was 7th female overall based  on time. I won veterans category by 13 minutes and only missed beating the elite girls home by around 4 minutes!!! Damn those cramps, I might have made it without them.

Real Insurance XCM Series Podium

Best of all I held onto my 3rd place position in the XCM series overall, which means I was on the podium with Jenny Fay and Becky Mates - two very accomplished racers.