Friday/Saturday I competed in the the NZ Bigs Backyard relaps. What an absolute headf*ck. Basically 4 miles, on the hour, every hour until last man standing…
The course was tough with 3 progressively harder single track climbs, first was really stoney, second, steep, third v steep and really slippery. It then got onto firetrail ups and downs which was a lot easier. So it was survive the first 3k, then roll then next 3.7, always walking the hills.
The target was 50-52 mins per lap.
Started at midday, which meant you were already up for a few hours to get there/pitch tent/register etc…
We had 6 hours in daylight and the into the night. At night the rain came on and off. Which made that third hill barely possible to get up.
During daylight, I found I had enough time to walk the last 500m through all the tents and still come in around the 51 minute mark. At night I knew I would be slower, which is cool as I could jog the 500m in tight.
But all was good until I swapped headtorches and I found that there was a loose connection that only came on when running which meant it flashed on the downhills which is where I needed to make up time. This started messing with my head. Was coming in 51-54 minutes now. Though still all good, then on the final night lap, my good headtorch ran out of battery enough that I could only use it on the low setting, which was not helpful. I got in in 56 minutes and by this point I had decided that I did not want to go really deep and let the start go and I was out.
That felt fine Saturday and Sunday, but now I am really kicking myself as I was feeling pretty good.
But it is SO SO easy to drop, you just stay sat down and you are out. Any normal race where you have a bad patch, you keep walking, it passes and then you start running again. Anyway…
I did 18 hours/120k. So not bad, came top 20.
Winner did 38 laps/250ish k I think. I don’t think I could have done that, the second night would have been mentally very hard, but I like to think I could got through the day time hours.
Anyway, again, what a mind f*ck. I was definitely not doing it again (I dont usually say this), but now I want redemption. Just need to remember how I feel now then.