I must apologize as I'm a touch late on this race report but its just that time of the year I guess.

Anyhow I made the trek up to Otorohanga to compete in this 4 hour Cross Country which was being run by Mark Penny & his wife Alana.The pits there were in the local primary school grounds there and it sure was a refreshing change to have a nice big tidy area for the pits with good amenities.

The race started at 10am and as per usual my start wasn't the best but I managed to move up towards the front fairly quickly, one of the local riders Michael Vining was giving me good run for my money for the first 2 laps then he pitted and handed the bike over to his team mate Phil Goodwright who I was able to move past on the third lap and start building a lead.

The laptimes on the track were around the 28min mark which is always good in a long race such as a 4 hour especially when you are competing as a Ironman like I was this day as it just tends to make the race not seem so as long as opposed to doing heaps of short laps, roughly 40% of the track was trees and the rest was farmland, but fairly challenging farmland providing an excellent track, at the same time a tiring one. Throughout the race I just kept up a fairly good pace I wanted to try an gap the field as the majority of the field were riding in teams meaning I was worried that they would reel me in towards the end of the race when I was tiring being an Ironman, but thankfully my fitness held strong and I was even able to post my own fastest lap on my final lap of the day and take the outright win, admittedly I was wrecked after the race though.

All up a good event Mark, Alana and their crew did a great job & I even got some great prizes for my efforts from winning the day.


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