Chitts's blog

Minter (Warthog) and I have just finished the inaugural Pioneer MTB race in New Zealand. The race is a seven day mountain bike stage race through New Zealand’s Southern Alps starting in Christchurch and ending in Queenstown. http://thepioneer.co.nz/ The scenery and location must be largely unparalleled anywhere in the world where you can race. Jaw droppingly spectacular!!

I went in to the race with a lot of trepidation given I knew my training was not up to scratch. I blame my wife, and the 3rd child we had at the end of May Jokes aside, I have been on a restricted leave pass which was meant training was restricted to 2 morning rides during the week and 1 ride on the weekend to be home by 10:30. The problem with this is that with interrupted sleep from the bub, I just could not set my alarm early for longer rides.

I arrived at Minter's house at 5pm on Friday where a take-away dinner of spaghetti and meatballs was waiting for me. We loaded the car and headed off into the peak Sydney traffic, chatting and laughing away and sharing memories from both our younger years and friendship we have developed over the past 4 years.

Some mates had kept us a camping spot and had the fire going, and soon we were tucking into Dorito's, chocolate brownies, and caramel koala's.....and talking a whole heap of shite.

I was training well for the Fling when disaster struck. My 3 year old got the flu and passed it onto me, fever, snot, and a chesty cough about 3 weeks ago. It knocked me out training for about 8 days and really got me worried as I looked at the Strava data for my riding buddies and saw them smashing out intervals during the week and putting in some serious weekend rides. My lip was dragging along the floor, my wife was ready to kill me, and my 3 year old was indifferent.

What a great day out. Perfect weather and a well run event. I missed my sub-5 hour target which I had randonmly selected. Looking at why I missed my targeted time, it is clearly that my bike is too heavy and has nothing to do with me being too soft and precious to push a bit harder.

I will be back to SMASH it next year Target 2013 is 4:45. Watch this space!! ........ er ...... can this be edited during the next 12 months?

Finally broke 5 hours so very chuffed!

Time for the 100km in 2010 was 5:18. Very happy with that!!

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