2010 Australian 24 Hour Solo National Championships

The training had gone well, preparation was perfect and Brett and I were ready for round 3 of McAvoy vs Bellchambers! With me winning last year and him beating me at the Kona, this should have been an epic decider battle, but Brett had other things on his mind...

Andrew Bell, Brendan Den and Brett Bellchambers were the favourites to take out the podium in my category and they were all ahead of me from the gun, my only hope, I thought, was to pray that they ripped each apart and I would come in later and clean up the mess.

Brendan was nipping at Brett's heals, but he had bigger fish to fry, he was off the front and leading the overall race, attacking English and Bell, a move that would surely be suicide I thought, rubbing my hands together excitedly! I just sat back and rolled with Garry and chatted, we kept the pace easy, but consistent, waiting for the time to attack.

Ed McDonald over took me, and so did other riders I was aware of and keeping my eye on, like Mathew Reekie and James Lamb. I was overly confident we could reel these guys back later and let them go, 24 hours is a long time after all, so I stuck with Garry and we kept lapping.

As day turned to night our consistent pace had landed us in a good position, but it wasn't good enough, Ed was gapping me and then, the leaders lapped me, including Brett. He was riding strong and I could see it then, he was a man on a mission, and he would not crack.

I left Garry and upped the pace in an effort to try and reel them back in, but it was futile, they just continued to pull away. It was frustrating as hell!

At 10pm, having been unable to stomach any solid food all race, I finally got some in, a piece of bread, and I could immediately tell I was in some trouble in my stomach, it started to reject anything I put in there. I stopped being able to drink and anything I did get in, made my stomach turn over and over. Not good.

By 2am the leaders double lapped me and I knew right there, my race was over, I shut down the pace and tried to regroup and get my stomach working, but it just wouldn't. I tried to keep the pace up, but I got slower and slower, until dawn, when my body just gave up and I was visiting the port-a-loo most laps.

Eventually I caught up to Garry again and we found out that he was winning his category and that Andrew and Brendan had over cooked their races and pulled the pin, moving me up to 2nd in my category. So we decided we'd just cruise to the finish and take our category podiums.

This was my favourite part of the whole event, for the next few hours we just rolled around, chatting, laughing, the pressure was off and we could just enjoy the rest of the race. My crew were bored with this, but I couldn't see the point in smashing myself for any overall gains, until...

At about 10am I got word I had snuck my way into the overall top 10, only just, I'd move up to 9th. Wow. That was the good news, the bad news is that a couple of guys behind me smelt blood and were attacking, trying to knock me back out of the top 10. Now we can't have that can we? ;) A quick sorry to Garry through the way too thin port-a-loo wall and I'm off, no idea who is in front of me, but going as quick as I can to hold off the attack from behind. Now I was putting power down again, I could really feel my lower back was stuffed, it was agony, but I pushed on to defend the top 10 placing.

Trying my hardest to the finish I skipped pit stops and pushed on, I was still frequenting the port-a-loo each lap though, so I just left my pants hanging around my ankles and rode on, no doubt to the disgust of every other rider :) Sorry all, I was in a rush!

I crossed the line to find out I had slipped past a couple of guys in that rush to the end and gotten into 7th overall, wow, better than expected after a tough night. It's a worse placing than the last two years, but I'd been beaten by Brett and Ed, two of my best mates, so it was hard to hate them for it (although I did try ;)). They did me proud out there and deserved the results they got, I am happy for them, well done boys!

I learned a valuable lesson though and that's that sitting back and waiting for others to crack is no longer a valid strategy in these events, you have to go with the early attack and stay on your opponent from the gun. 24 solo racing just gets more serious every year!

Some stats for fun:

Race Distance: 390km
Climb: 6.3 vertical kilometers
Energy Burned: 12,405 Calories - The equivalent of 83 Easter Buns
Speed: Average 16.2km/h
HR: 123bpm
Power: 180WNP
Cadence: 80rpm
Crashes: 1
Result: 7th (2nd in my category)
Training: 119 hours over 12 weeks (roughly half last years training)

The Polar memory filled up half way, but you can see my usual steady pace until lap 16 when I take a big nose dive and hover around 115bpm, this later dipped below 110bpm and I recall looking at my HR while cruising with Gaz and I was rolling at 100bpm for those laps.

A look at the results of the top 20 shows the race was about the same as last year, although the tail end has lifted slightly. Sadly this graph shows I have dropped 5% off the pace of last year. Bugger.

The data from the powertap shows a lot of cadence bewteen 60 and 100, which I am happy with, but check out the power distribution, a very even spread from 60W to 260W, weird. Power curve is about right, pretty much flat from 30mins to 10hours, nice and steady.

A look at how little hope I had, Brett just pulled away from me all race, without me having any chance of gaining a single minute back. Very different to last years race where it was quite even. It shows how much he has improved this last 12 months. Ed also trounced me all race, and was even able to get some time back on Brett at at the 2/3rds mark, but Brett pulled away like a freight train at the end.