before I’ d even settled into the day. I had to consciously talk myself down out there, mid-race, telling myself to chill out and get my heart rate under control before I did something genuinely stupid on a bike I still didn’ t fully trust. On top of the physical side, this was effectively my first real day on the bike in true race conditions, and not knowing its limits yet meant I rode tentatively all day. I was soaking up bumps and whoops that I should have been wheelying straight over, rather than secondguessing the suspension underneath me. The plan had been smooth, steady, and consistent... instead, Day 1 was cautious, jumpy, and a bit of a scrap between my head and my hands the whole way through. The terrain surprised me as well, genuinely fast tracks rather than the gnarly technical stuff I’ d braced myself for, and we finished the day 6th overall, thirteen minutes off the lead.
Not the day I wanted, but one I could build from, and mentally I left that first day knowing the biggest thing I needed to fix wasn’ t fitness or the bike, it was simply learning to trust both of them.
SUSPECTED BUSTED ANKLE Day 2 felt far better from the first few kilometres. I was now starting to understood the rhythm of the event; how the marking worked, what the terrain was likely to throw at me, and I felt considerably more locked in on the bike than I had the day before. Then, about 30km in, I caught my left foot on a rut and twisted my ankle badly enough that it went black and ballooned up straight away, to the point I could barely walk on it by the end of the day. It was pain, but that’ s all it was. And pain was never going to be the reason I didn’ t finish this event. Aside from a few minor navigation errors, the
26 KIWI RIDER