Making the most of the weekend we went and stayed at my parents in Tuross heads. We also went over to see my grandmother in Moruya. Took the old bloke out for dinner to celebrate (a week late) fathers day and it was a pretty good feed.
Sunday was race day and I was keen to start. After having 2 weeks of training this one would be hard to back up for a full solid performance.
The start went well, actually enjoyed the hills, pushed through some ST and kept it all going really well till about the 40k’s. I could tell the training was catching up but that’s OK, I kept at it. Got to the 50k mark under the 3 hours, re-filled with liquids, food, lubed the chain and I was off again. This is where I really started to notice the heat, and another 15k’s, I could not believe that I was almost out of fluids and feeling dehydrated it was not a good thing. I had 15k’s to go till the feed zone and just starting the climb, at the base the biggest hill. Pushing on I took the wrong way then made my way back, what a silly thing to do. Working my way up the climb taking it easy and conservative, I was sure I could see the distance on my speedo going backwards it seemed to take forever. I was visualising the red bulls that I saw there last year, but unfortunately when I got there they had none :(.
I drank 2 full bottles, and re-filled and off I went to finish off the last 20k’s. It only took 5k’s and I was all good again right in time to enjoy all those great berms and smash it out till the end. It is a good feeling towards the end of a race when you feel you can go hard, and it seemed so silly that I was struggling so badly only 20k’s beforehand. Turned into the finish area and the first person I see was Kendra, great to see that while knocking out the last few push’s on the pedals. After all that with 6hours and 10min, with no idea where I actually came it ended up being a tough one for sure. Did better than last year, and I know I have a faster time in me for sure. But sometimes it is all about good solid training for the bigger ones.
It was great to see so many friendly faces out there. Lots of fun, bring it on again I say.
