The 2017 WaimiHARD Enduro, Saturday 14th January 2017
On Friday I stepped on a sticky-up bit of Hazel and Paul’s tent and scraped some skin on that really tender bit of my foot. That really set me up well for Saturday. Also, Daniel Refoy is way better at doing push-bike wheelstands than me which is kind of annoying.
The start was OK. I just waited for everyone to go in front so that I didn’t get in anyone’s way. Everyone was falling off on the first hill becuase they were all trying to get past each other and just getting stuck and falling off. I just waited for the easier line to clear and went up there but some guy went in front of me and got stuck so while I was waiting for him to move Deidre Grey tried to get past and fell on top of me just as the guy got unstuck. It cost us both at least a minute longer than it should have.
The first lap was a mission. I couldn’t get over any of the logs. I fell off on all the slightly long or steep hill climbs and I swear I found every single tree root on the track. I also had some trouble with one of the downhills. It was near the start of the day and I was freaked out. I got Paul to ride my bike down. On the second lap I rode down. It was a bit freaky but it was ok.
After about 3 hours (actually 02:39:30) when I finally got back to the pits I was exhausted and really didn’t feel like going out for a second lap but Hazel said that, if I went out again, she would jump straight into the swimming hole which, by the way, is freezing.
The second lap was much better than the first one because I’d gotten used to the bike and knew I had to go a bit harder. Looking back I probably should have gone over the tyres at the end but, at the time, I was exhausted and didn’t really feel like falling off in front of everyone.
The swim capped off a good day.