What's Next Cath?

No better excuse to do a mountain bike race ride by convincing a great mate into joining you. I'd flagged the Kowalski Classic with Cath as a potential event while she was overseas running mountain marathons. Yep she sounded keen. Fast forward a month or so and we still hadn't got around to entering. Add on another month and the closing date was looming...could we still be bothered?

Cath took the plunge first and I soon followed. Initially we were thinking of the Half Kowalski (50km) but severe lack of any physical activity on my behalf reduced that quickly to the Quarter Kowalski (25km).

Funnily enough with all this rain, I'd joked that it would probably be cancelled due to wet weather and umm yep that's exactly what happened. Luckily the organisers rescheduled it for a month later. We could both still make it plus we had the bonus of another month of training (or lack of!)

Andy was roped into the race at the last minute to replace an injured Patrick who had torn his ACL playing soccer! Poor Patrick had not long had the cast off his broken hand - he really is having an unlucky year. Andy's role was to shadow Josh around the Quarter. Andy is in the red and Josh in the blue.

Twas cold waiting in the wind for the start. Once we got going though the conditions were really lovely for riding. Not the best beginning for me as up the first climb on the fire trail, I managed to loose chain and jam it nicely. Poor Cath was waiting at the top wondering what was happening. Eventually I appeared, bike in order with greasy hands!

Onto the single track we went. There was lots of passing and being passed as we all sorted ourselves out. The tracks themselves were nice to ride. Nothing super technical thankfully but we both commented on sour ore hands after a short while!

Before we knew it we were making our way through the tunnel under the Kings Highway into Sparrow Hill. Loads of great downhills. Although the fun turned into hard work slogging back up to the top and the km's were ticking slowly away.

Through the next few sections we merged with the longer courses. At one point worried about holding up the faster riders, I lost concentration around a bend. My front wheel dug into a muddy corner. I overbalanced, couldn't unclip my foot and rolled over with my bike onto the nice soft bed of pine needles. Got a few comments from the riders behind about how graceful it all looked. My only stack for the day and I was just glad I didn't injure myself.

Back on the bike, I was beginning to look forward to the finish line but we still had another 7kms to go! Cath was going strong and when she was leading I'd quickly fall off her wheel. She resigned herself to the back though after nearly crashing citing that her eyesight was a problem. I did point out that I didn't have the greatest eye sight either only to be told that I'd had poor sight for ages so I was used to it while hers was a new thing which she hadn't really adjusted to yet. Ah the joys of getting old!

Thankfully the Kings Highway tunnel appeared again and we knew it wasn't too far to the finishing line. The next section of uphill single track seemed to go on forever pushing me well into oxygen debt and close to cramping up my hamstrings. Several 50km riders passed us here, all giving lots of encouragement. One guy informed us there was only one more downhill single track section before the fire trail took us home. I was really looking forward to the finish. Finally we made it onto the fire trail only to be faced with a very steep hill which I resorted to walking the top half.

Caught up to Cath who managed to ride up the hill and very nicely waited for me at the top. We rode the last section across the field to the finish line completing our first Quarter Kowalski in 1:52:06. Andy and Josh were already back. They beat us by 8minutes. A coffee from the 2b410 van and hot chips were much appreciated while soaking up the sun.

I really enjoyed the trails and event all made better by the company - thanks Cath! Now I'm wondering what our next adventure will be??

Post race we joined up with the non-riders - Eoin, Aoife, Nadine, Lily, Grandad, Ella and Katy for a relaxing late lunch at Riccardos.