Killed to Death at Pickles Hill

Pickles Hill.

What can I say.

In the words of Dad post-race 'I got myself into a bit of a pickle' (note the joke) pretty much summed it up for me, as well as the other 144 entrants.

Yet again, I had underestimated the difficulty of this race, shrugging it off as a relatively easy roll (completely ignoring the fact that it was a 60km endurance race), and also had the idea in my head that it was going to be flat (yet again, ignoring that the race even has the word 'hill' in it).

With 1,600m of elevation over the 60km, it was brutal. 

Here's the race report, being a bit more formal than last time:

The start of Pickles Hill was much better than expected. It was a nice and slow start, which was not what I was expecting. Pretty much everyone had decided to pace themselves on the first lap, which I was happy with. Once we got to the first major climb though, several groups quickly formed. I managed to plant myself in with the faster guys for the first few kms, but soon thought it would be beneficial not to blow up, so I slowed down a bit to save myself for later.

Dad racin' the big pickles hill.

The first lap saw a bit of confusion, as the track was freshly cut and every now and then the track shot off somewhere, seemingly disappearing, before all of a sudden finding yourself back on the course. For the first lap, I was in a good group of riders, including the likes of Hunnibell, Jenkins and Turner. 

Before long, I found myself on my own, 20km into the 60km race. Hunnibell, Jenkins and Turner had all but left me, and I found myself within a new group of riders. My lower back had started to hurt (a lot actually) and I was in the pain cave. Some people went past me, some people went behind me. At this point in time I had little idea as to what place I was coming, all I knew was that I was ahead of the other Junior riders.

During the 2nd and 3rd lap, I slowed and suffered, having bonked minorly. I was also witness to my sisters amazing ability to hand me food and drink during these laps, having dropped my food on the dirt and letting go of the drink bottles before I barely touch it. She's still getting used to it...

On my final lap, I was slow and steady at the start, almost too slow and steady actually. However, soon I was being chased down by someone I wanted to beat, Mr. Locke. It had been a very close battle between us too in the road racing scene over the last few months, and this was my first race against him on the mountain bike, but this was his preferred discipline, so I didn't know what to expect. As I saw him coming closer and closer, it got to a stage where he was a mere 10s behind me. I stressed, and gave more then I had to give on the last major climb.

I had managed to drop him, and in the process had caught up to Jenkins who I hadn't seen for the last 40km. I rode past him. I was stoked. I kept going at the strong pace, until I had overtaken a good few riders, having Turner in sight. The pace was on...

I crossed the line, 10s or so behind Turner. I didn't care too much though, as I had just taken out the Junior classification, and had parked myself a comfortable 18th overall, out of the 144 riders out on course. I was pretty stoked with myself, so much so, that I even gave a victory salute.

Not too long later, maybe about 20-30 minutes, came in Dad - also showing some style as he crossed the line. He too, was pretty stoked with his final position, especially given the strong lack of training for this style of racing.

Overall, Pickles Hill was a damn hard race. For anyone planning to do it next year or on the foreseeable future, take this seriously and don't shrug it off like I did, because really, it was hard.

A big thanks to Cyclingo, Rowney Sports, Niner Oz and the VeloWear Cycling Team for helping me out. I'd also like to thank Phil at MyMTBcoach.com for helping me out, even if it has only been a week or so since I started.