Manna Maniacs - CORC Round 3, Manna Park, South Coast, NSW

Winter has come, and it has hit really hard, with some days seeing temps drop to zero before the sun has gone down. We can see snow on the Brindabella Mountains which means the ski season has kicked off, and the tracks are consistently moist and grippy. Riding and training is still possible but I’m finding it hard to stay motivated. I came down with an URTI (Upper Respiratory Tract Infection) in the days leading up the 7hr so I had to make a last minute decision to pull out. Thanks to Matt for stepping in to race for me, I think he had the sniffles as well but pushed through with the team to complete with a good result.

As per usual I’ve had a mixed bag of training ‘weeks’ over the last month or so. I ended up losing 2 weeks of training with being sick, but then made the most of the weekends with some good interval sessions and spun out the stationary trainer during the weekdays. On average I’m doing 4 sessions a week with about 5 – 6hrs in the saddle. Now that I’ve locked myself into B grade for the rest of the year I’ve been trying to push out the sessions to 90mins to 120mins. Hopefully this will improve my endurance and give me some more ammo for that last lap. My diet is a little better but this cold weather just makes me want to eat Double Cooked Pork belly all night long. I’ve dropped another skin fold down to 84kgs but still have my eyes set on sub 80kgs by the end of the year. TLC Cycles have been maintaining my Scott to near perfection. The shop hooked me up with some new Ritchey grips and a new Maxxis CrossMark tyre, all at the right price. Thanks for the help team TLC.

We have started a facebook group as a gee-up for friends who ride and race to get organised with rides and weekends away like this. It’s proving to be a handy tool and we ended up with 8 like minded Track Elves making the pilgrimage to sunny Merimbula. It’s refreshing to be hanging out with easy going folks who like to race hard when the gun goes off.

The Race

I’m still at bit puzzled at the rationale for having an ACT round of the CORC series in NSW, but for me, to get a taste of a new track and score some points at the same time seems like a great idea. So with no better excuse, Cathy, Callum and I packed up the car as a family unit and headed to the coast.

The Race was held at Manna Park which is situated about 15mins north of Merimbula. The park presented typical Aussie coastal flora and fauna with ferny gullies, loamy blackened soil then to tall eucalypts and rocky trails on the top of the mountain. Driving into the park I could feel every little tight and sore point in my legs, my hamstrings felt a little tight, my throat felt a little sore and my body was trying hard to convince my mind that flogging around single trail for 90mins isn’t a good thing. Bad luck body, because my mind knows better!!!

http://www.mannapark.com.au/

It wasn’t a huge turn out of riders and the officials decided to run A and B grade together. It was a bit hard to know who entered what grade but some familiar faces told the story fairly well. I went in with the attitude to keep the lead riders in view for the first lap, find a good pace for the middle 2 laps then punch out a quick last lap. Without a practice lap I also committed myself to hitting all the A lines at pace, that’s logical isn’t it?!?!

The first lap went to plan, I found myself towards the back of the pack but with a few riders behind me. I was pushing and breathing hard at a HR of 175bpm and made a little space between me and 5th place. On the descent I managed to recover into a manageable 165bpm and was feeling ok. The A lines were designed well and you didn’t really need to be 100% committed to make it over them, the drop off’s were actually steep down ramps and the rocky descent was smooth enough to hit with speed without losing it. Lots of fast flowing berms were you could carry heaps of speed but as per usual the downhill just wasn’t long enough.

Early into the second lap and with the last lap in mind, I told myself to conserve and recover. I locked into a pace that was still pushing hard but without going anaerobic so my legs could clean themselves out a little. It didn’t take long and 5th place was on the move and got past me up the steep switch backs. I let him go and convinced myself that any chance I had would be to get him in the finals stages of the race when he wrecked himself. Well that didn’t happen, he got faster and I had a mechanical.

The third lap is a bit of a blur but I got passed by another rider and was riding in 6th, or last as there were only 6 riders. I remember feeling a strong pain in my hip down to the outside of my quads so I’m going to have to get some advice on that one. I changed up gears, down gears, and back up again until I found a cadence that didn’t hurt as much. Being a bit slower on the steep up hill section I knew I had to punch out some strong downhill action to have any chance at getting that place back. I locked in, thought about being smooth and fast, thought about Luke Skywalker and the force, and hammered the descent as fast as I could. Man it was a fun track, off camber long turns, gullies into tight berm’s and wide open big ring sprints through grassy firetrail’s, it had it all.

The last lap, time to give it everything. Near the top of the climb right when I had punished my legs as much as I could, I noticed my front tyre was going down slowly. It was only a minute later and I had my bike over my shoulder and was jogging through the bush from one single trail to the other. I found a friendly marshal (Andy), on the track and asked him for a tube. He said no but ‘take my front wheel if you want’. Sweet….After a quick pit stop, I was back on the trail, but his front disc was smaller then mine so I had to hit the downhill with only my back brake. All good, ‘channel those BMX days and find your inner bandit’ I said to myself. Also had to repeat out loud, left brake only, left brake only. I knew if I grabbed my front brake it may lock up and leave me on foot again, or my pads would seize together leaving me with a trip to the bike shop. Luckily Carmel (fastest lady on the track) rode past just as I pulled back onto the trail and she was able to get me back into a nice pace and give me a dusty warning on fast approaching tight corners. After a couple of moments and massive skids, I made it to the finish. I probably lost about 6mins with the flat but at least I finished. I’m hoping all this bad luck will come as part of my steep learning curve and next year will bring better luck and better results. Might even get some better luck in the next race :-)

Andy my savour

Race Work Rate
Max HR: 179bpm
Average HR: 165bpm

Highlights
- awesome track with heaps of technical stuff
- fun steep and fast downhill section
- Saturday night dinner with the gang
- coming into 2nd lap ahead of a few quick B graders
- hanging with my little family and having them at the race
- currently running 11th in B grade standings

Lowlights
- steep switchbacks wasn’t very well suited to a heavy climber like me
- downhill was over way too quickly
- bloody puncture, going tubeless soon for sure
- back axle is still slipping in those carbon drop outs
- B grade first lap pace is still well beyond me

Next race is CORC Rd 3.3 for locals who couldn’t make it the Manna Park. It's on this weekend. My goal will be similar to the last, Top 10 will be good but Top 5 I’d view as a win.

Until next post.
Ride On!!!