Photo of me heading up the Karetai Track for the first hill climb.
Well the annual Peninsula Challenge MTB race has been for this year and what a day Dunedin turned on! This was my 4th year racing in this event, an outstanding course that challenges everyone with the grunty climbs and rewards all with some super terrain and views from the tops of the climbs. This year it started out as a very warm morning and was around 24 degrees at about 8.30am! so by the time the race started at 10am it was really starting to cook up. The race starts off with a quick spin around a paddock before getting into the first climb to the top of the Karetai track and road. I took off at the start to ensure i was in a good place with out too much congestion for this hill climb. By the time i was nearing the top of this i was starting to wonder how the body was going to hang on for the remaining course fo 43km in the heat. Anyway a careful descent down the buskin track avoiding any crashes and it was into another climb back up, the race continues with climbs and descents all the way out to Tairoa Heads. It was on one of the hill climbs mid race another rider told me the temperature was 38 degrees!! this explained a lot about the way i was feeling - pretty cooked and heat blown. Anyway I kept on pedaling hard and made the most of the flat sections to spin out hard and the downs to take rest from the taxing up hill stages. I reached the end at Tairoa Heads in 3hours13minutes - around 45minutes slower than my best time for the same course. I finished 18th open man and 33rd from a field of around 200 riders.
A fantastic event the has grown in popularity - a good challenge and one to put on the list of events for the year, If you haven’t done this one it is definitely worth a look if you are up for the challenge of it.
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