Howick Highlander

Hey All

This weekend was the Howick Highlander, and was definitely going to be a really tough race. After riding the course with Craig on Saturday morning, I went home got the bike prepped and ready for the next day.

Sunday morning dawned, and there were some big names that would be contending for top honours, Craig Paul, Roan Exelby, Pete Smith and Travis Walker. A long fairly dusty neutral zone lead us out of the start/finish area. As soon as we hit the district road, Jedson Tooms put in an attack which was short lived due to a snapped chain. The bunch began splitting up slightly as the pace became faster and faster on the undulating roads.

Craig put in a small attack on a really bumpy section, which left the rest of the bunch fighting for the minor places. Craig’s gap increased slightly all the time and by the time he reached the top of the biggest climb of the day, he had close on a minute off the bunch. The bunch was now pushing super hard to close down the gap, and I was soon found in no mans land, just off the back. I stayed as calm as possible, knowing I would close the gap in the super long single track section coming up. I managed to catch back up in one of the super technical single track sections. Unfortunately, being super eager to catch up to the next guys in front, I tried to pass by going around the rider by taking the more technical line. Around 50m or so later I found myself in a heap on the exit of the rock garden, with an intense pain coming from the inside of my right knee.

I got up, looked around for my watch which had been ripped of my arm and tried to piece my race back together. But from there the race just started going backwards, I dropped from my position and soon found Andrew Hill (6th) leaving me to frizzle up. I tried my absolute hardest to push through the pain and try find a good rhythm but as soon as I put any form of pressure on my knee it would feel as though someone was sliding a hot piece of metal under my skin. I eventually made it to a marshal, who notified the officials of my withdrawal, and took a chilled cruise back to the finish.

Congrats to Craig, who managed to pull off the win, with Pete claiming 3rd respectively.

Now to try and recover a bit and get back into the training…

Until next time
Ciao