With the growing popularity of mountain biking, the Huka Challenge is an increasingly popular alternative to the boring grind that is the Wattyl Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge.
The Huka Challenge is 83 km of single track that is not for the faint-hearted, or should I say, the unfit.
I entered this year, finishing 2nd in my age category behind a bloke named Hilton Forlong who is known to be quicker than a rat up a drain pipe. Gosh, he's a rocket on a mountain bike! He beat me by half an hour (My time: 5hr 26min). I was 84th overall out of 287 finishers. I would say there were quite a few DNFs. It was not an easy race at all.
What really excited me about this race has been the speed of my recovery. This was by far my longest ever mountain bike race and I am doing less training nowadays. Despite this, I was walking around okay after the race and was ready to be on my bike again just two days later. The following weekend, we rode a three hour course that usually leaves me feeling quite wasted by the end. This time, I got round the course no problems at all, other than feeling pleasantly tired. This was alleviated shortly thereafter with a hearty feed of fish and kumara chips.
Healing and recovery tend to slow as we get older. I have definitely reversed this process over recent years. Please refer to the articles here for more information about how this was done:
Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.
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