lisa morgan

The title says it all really.  Despite a great course full of tracks I've always enjoyed and perfect racing conditions (warm, but not to hot, and not humid at all), I wasn't able to bring anything to the race and in a field full of chicks who are going really fast right now I managed to get myself lapped - almost unheard of in NZ womens racing!  Not exactly the ideal return to elite racing.  You don't expect to come back in full force, but I hadn't quite expected this.

After ending up tail-ender except for an U19 rider in to the single track I had a couple of others in my sights for most of the first lap but after that I would see nothing but a couple of glimpses through uphill switchbacks.  To make things a little bit tougher, because I was so much further back than usual the boys started coming through that much earlier and it really does pay to get out of their way.  By lap 3 I was down to attempting to salvage some pride by riding the A-line at the drop in the first descent - something not usually done by the girls, and right at the end of my 4th lap Eloise Fry came past me on her way to picking up the win - after that the feed zone commissaire said he'd 'do me a favour' and call me lapped out and not send me out for a 5th lap (little did he know I'd done a lap for my warm up, so in a sense I did 5 - right?).  I thanked him rode back to the car with my head down.

I've got a week now to pick myself back up and see if I can't do at least a bit better on Mt Vic next weekend.

No one said it would be easy!

Many thanks to Helen for the pics and the cheers (whilst taking great photos!) on course.