It's the biggest mountain biking race this side of the equator and we're lucky enough to have it held in our backyard, they get 2000 competitors a year, which makes for a huge event.
Hardly in it for the race, but more for the event, I entered a team of 4 this year, with Simon, Tim and Scott. Last year we had a run at a 6 person team and although we had found it challenging (to say the least!), we'd done a few other events since then (an AROC adventure race and the 12 hours of darkness) and things seemed to be getting a little easier, so we decided to up the ante this year.
I was keen to challenge myself and had toyed with the idea of 2 man team, but that was looking a little too daunting, I just wasn't ready. At the last minute one of our other friends (Cam) pulled out of our sister team and Simon decided to fill in for him (he was keen to get out of our 4 man team thinking we were a little mad!). leaving us as a three. Coming off training consisting of 3 trial runs of the course, I wasn't sure that we could do it, but we figured we should give it a go.
I got to do the first lap, which was nerve racking. 500 riders lined up at the start line awaiting the gun. When it went off, we had to do an 800m run to the bikes, where it was a mass of people trying to find their bikes and take off. The lap was a blur, I was keen to get back to transition and not let my team down. Scott was there to take us out for lap two, he and Tim are a fair bit faster than me, but they were okay with my times being slower than theirs, as I said, we were there for fun, not to win.
I spent my time off the course eating protein to cool down, filling up on water (20 litres in total), resting for about an hour, then carbo loading, pre-hydrating and getting back up to transition to take off for another lap.
There was hardly any time to socialise, last year we got around 6 hours between laps, this year it was less than 3, and after cool down, warm up, eating, tunning the bike and drinking, there wasn't really much time left to just hang out. It was a little rushed.
For the night laps we decided to double lap, so we could get 6 hours off the bike to sleep, although we found doing two laps in a row really hard (that second lap was a killer!) this turned out to be the best part of our race plan as I managed to get 5 full hours of baby-like sleep, waking refreshed and ready to keep going.
Once the sun came up it's amazing how good you feel. For my final lap, I was treated to pre lap bacon and eggs from Brendan, and Simon waited 10 minutes after his transition to do our last lap together. This was awesome, riding alone is okay, but riding with a friend is 10 times as much fun. Simon lead for the first half of the lap, pulling me along at a speed way out of my comfort zone, but I was keen to push it for my last lap as I didn't need to do any more afterward. We came in under 1:20, my second fastest lap all race, well ahead of my expectations and I really finished on a high.
It's a finish like that, that makes me look forward to planning for next year, where I hope we can run in teams of two...