holy !! BAN ME NOW FOR SWEARING !!, that was tough
My lead up was not ideal (crap infact), wedding the night before, couple of drinks and getting home and in bed at 1.30am, then awake at 5am (3.5hrs sleep), i was pretty much rooted before i was even on the bike, managed to sneak in an extra hr sleep in the car which helped a little.
Race started off fine, i didnt really havev a goal and thought i would just ride and see how i felt, i knew the lack of sleep combined with the heat would smah me about. I did the first 2 laps back to back, had a quick 3 or 4min break to refill water and get a quick sandwhich in (was drinking 1litre per lap, did i mesntion it was HOT), third lap was good, not fast as i was riding a slwo pace to survive but felt good, went past the Gazebo and out for a 4th lap, amazingly at this point i was still ahead of Spiz and keith (in a pair team) and also Rainers 3 man team. $th lap was a toughy, the heat got to me and i slowed down a bit, (think my lap was about 5mins slower), Spiz past me on my 4th lap, he was powering and looked to be doing it easy, think it was his 2nd lap, i manged to finish my 4th lap still ahead of Rainers team
, at this point i was content to call it quits, i was knackered, my eyes were stinging, only thing that felt good were my legs, like i hadnt riden at all, pity i had nothing upstairs left to push them. I had lots of water, ate lots and then decided to go and do a 5th and final lap. This one was fairly cruisy and felt ok, rode with Keith for a bit of it. Decided that i did not want to go and do anymore and risk damage to me or bike so stopped it there, think this was only about 2.30 or something. Chilled out while spiz was doing some more laps and packed up slowly.
So it was a tough day, 38 or 39 degrees and very little sleep is not a good combination and in wont be doing that again thats for sure.
So i did 5 laps, moving speed was 12km/h i think, 1200m climbing i think.
Will post up garmin data tonight.
I finished 29th out of 41 solo riders. Well atleast i wasnt last
Congrats to Spiz, he flew around at good speed. Congrats to keith who didnt break his bike (first event i think his bike has lasted the whole event
), Rainer broke his rear suspension but should hopefully only need a bolt to get it back together.
Congrats to all the solo riders who rode the whole 8hrs, very huge effort indeed.
Don