Come the NZDH #5 Race at Hunua I was feeling pretty good, real fit and strong and loving riding clipped in! My pedalling is so much more efficient. :) I was stoked as to take out the open women's category, had a two really good runs that were smooth and clean. The track was in mint condition because we had lovely sunny weather :) had such a great day. Cheers to all the crew that made that event happen!
A couple of days before Christmas I broke my collarbone :( not riding my downhill bike! No I did it out riding the trails at Riverhead on my cross country bike!! I really couldnt believe the doc when she told me it was broken, I said no way it can't be, I've got the NZ Downhill season to compete in, in 2 weeks! And I had trained so hard for it, but I guess that's all part of it, doing a sport such as Mountain biking. So I spent about six weeks waiting for the bone to heal which brings me to the beginning of Feb. Luckily it healed nice and quickly with no issues and I'm so pumped to be back on my bike and able to get straight back into it.
Since I been feeling so good I hit up the last round of the Downhill series at Hunua, I had such a good weekend for the first time back on my bike, it felt like I hadn't even been off it!! Sussed out the track pretty quickly and come race day I surprised myself by doing a pretty decent time, seeded in 6th place and then stepped up to 5th place in my race run. We had some international competition in the Elite women's Downhill Race, with Emilie Ragot (2011 World Champ) taking out the podium, along with Jess Stone over from the UK, taking 2nd. On whim I decided to compete in the Cross Country Race on Sunday, my brother was going out to do it, so why not give it a go? Sunday was scorching hot and it was a killer of a race we had to do 5 laps of a 6km course in the heat of the day. It was such a mission but I enjoyed the challenge of it and went hardout! The short downhill descents on the track were my favourite bits of course! :) (although they didn't last quite long enough for my liking, I did choose to do the Cross Country though, so I had to accept the climbs!) Didn't get to complete my 5 laps because I got lapped out by Pro-elite racer and legend Karen Hanlen, (it's obviously better to have more training behind me with a race like this!) But it was fun to give it a go anyway, loved the challenge it presented totally different to the Downhill!
So that's what I've been up to, stoked to be back on my bike again and really looking forward to Rotorua this coming weekend. Bring on National Champs!!!
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