Whaka 100 race advice.

The infamous creek jump. Full send is the only option.

We are a week out from the Whaka 100/ NZ Mountain Bike Marathon Champs, one of the best races on the NZ mountain bike race calendar. At this point all your endurance work is done and you will have started to taper. Your bike and relevant equipment is all sorted. What you do this weekend is important including a well structured week next week to have you coming in hawwwt on race day feeling mentally and physically fired up and ready to race. Lets GO!

Here are a few key tips for those getting on the start line next week, relevant to first timers with a completion goal or those that have this as a priority A race going for personal bests and placings.

1) Fuel, fuel, fuel! Following the golden rule of not doing anything new in a race that has not been trialled in training. Use whatever fuel and hydration works for you but make sure you are getting the energy in. Given the amount of single track in this course make sure you know where you are going to be able to fuel - eg 4wd or less technical single track.

2) It’s a long race which means that you do need to pace yourself but also, anything can happen. Even if things go wrong for you, or you bonk (although I’ll refer you back to tip #1), it’s not over till it’s over. It is highly likely there will be people in front of you that have gone out too hard and will be suffering their way to the finish getting slower and slower. Keep hustling to the end and you never know how many placings you may be able to pick up.

3) When you get to the creek jump at the end - send it. No matter how it goes, the kudos from spectators and picture for the gram will be worth it.

4) Try to bank some extra sleep this week if you can, especially if you’re prone to pre-race nerves interfering with your sleep on the night before race day. Sleep is the most effective yet under-utilised recovery tool and performance enhancer!

5) Why are you doing this? There will be some suffering in this race. Being really clear on why you’re there, what your goal is, will help you push through when the going gets tough (“the tough get going”….sorry it’s an automatic response that just comes out of me).

You’ve done the work (hopefully lol) now go have fun ripping around some epic trails in what has got to be one of NZs best mountain bike events!