Half Kowalski

Having raced the full Kowalski last year and barely made it in 6hours. I thought I'll take it easy this year and do the half. I haven't really train/ride enough this year to be in a condition to do the full. So a few weeks before the race I did some last minute training, the rain we've had the past few weeks didn't help in motivating me to ride, plus my training trail manly dam was closed for almost a month. So the past week I was riding up and down the pipeline, and mixing it up with a bit of road riding.

Now for the race itself, the 50KM track was great!!
My only regret was not starting in an earlier group, I signed up for group 4 but sneaked myself in to start in wave 3C. There was a long slow queue on the uphills in the first half, and I mean 20-30 riders long which left you with little choice but to wait. A lot of stopping for no apparent reason. The 2nd half was much better in terms of the riding, I could go at my own pace without having 20-30 riders in front of me.

The climb up seismic road towards the end was a killer, but kept saying to myself MUST NOT GET OFF AND WALK. I was on my 26x34 granny gear, so I think I'll stick with my double chainring for now Climbing up Big Wednesday instead of going down felt weird, when you know how good it would be riding down those berms. The final descent down the beer garden was a great finale.

I'm happy with my results. Now something I need to decide is whether I should do the full or half fling in November ??