Pain junkie pedals into elite ranks

by Jamie Troughton | 12th November 2009

Courteney Lowe loves nothing better than the feeling of lactic acid burning through her thighs. She'll hunt out hills until her calves form tight knots, then push a little harder until her lungs start to scream.

Pain is her friend, her loyal training partner. She once rode five repetitions of the Minden Hill in Te Puna "for fun" and thinks nothing of chucking in a couple of 120km training rides every week.

Yet that masochistic streak hides some serious ambition, and tomorrow the 18-year-old Tauranga Road Cycling Club member will test that intent at the Oceania championships in Invercargill.

Tomorrow's time trial will be her first big race in the elite women's ranks and comes a month after she grabbed a significant national title double, capturing the under-19 time trial and road race titles in Motueka.

"Last year was my first in the under-19 ranks and it was pretty daunting but the extra year has made things so much better," Lowe says.

"I don't get scared this year and I'm a lot more confident. You've got to be tough and get your elbows out and not let people push you around.

"That's why I'm not expecting too much from this week - I'll be in elite women so it's just all about experience.

"There are some pretty good Australians coming over and a lot of them are in professional teams but it's going to be really good testing myself against them."

Which brings us back to that masochistic streak.

Lowe began her competitive cycling four years ago while still at Otumoetai College, although her links stretch back much further through her father, Rick, the chef at  the Tauranga restaurant Somerset Cottage.

"Dad was a cyclist when he was younger and now he's got back into it. He's just got a new bike that's better than mine and now he's beating me.

"I'm so competitive too - I've always raced against Dad and, ever since I was young, I've never liked riding on the flat. I liked to go kill it up hills and I always had bigger gears than I was supposed to have.

"My chain ring was huge so I had to push even harder. You can't get much more pain than that."

The rewards have come swiftly though. Her Tauranga club fundraised to send her over to Australia for two junior races  over winter and she repaid them by finishing fourth in the Canberra tour and winning the under-19 title in the Adelaide event.

Lowe, who is studying sport and leisure at Waikato University, then pushed on to the nationals, where she smashed the 15km time trial field in Motueka to win by more than 20secs.

In the road race, she and Waikato rider Maddy Brunton staged a series of aggressive breaks over the 64km distance but, unable to shake a five-strong chasing bunch, Lowe resorted to beating them in a sprint to the line instead.

Lowe will also compete in the Oceania road race on Sunday, before knuckling down into some serious training.

"It's going to get really busy now I'm in the elite division - probably three hours a day, racing on Saturday and five hours on Sunday," she says. "Next year is all about getting into the elite women ranks and getting used to that - then I'll be targeting things like the 2012 world championships, the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and then, ultimately, the Olympics in 2016."