Jason McAvoy's Blog

It's the eve of the biggest 24 hour race on the planet, and it's a special one this year, the 10th anniversary. For me this year will be very very different; it's my first year actually racing one of these things.

I'm in the Onya Bike Belco 3 man team; Mick Brice, our sponsor is awesome; he's providing entry, rego, heating, power, marquee, a chef, full race kits (nicks, vest, jersey, arm warmers), mechanical support. He's even had other boys go and setup the whole campsite and everything. All I have to do is show up with my bike and race!

It turns out if there's one thing I can do, it's eat! During training periods this year (about 26 weeks) I've mowed my way through 175 kilos of bread and cereal, 175 kilos of fruit and vege, *burp*, then chased that down with 120 kilos of milk and yogurt :P Crikey.

The top 5 favourite foods list:

- bread (51Kg)
- milk (47L)
- 266 bananas (41Kg)
- 238 apples (34Kg)
- chicken breast (34Kg)

At least it's healthy (for the most part) I guess, but I suspect if you piled up 51 kilos of bread (72 loaves) in front of me I'd be sick right now :)

I was absolutely on fire for this race; It felt awesome to be fit, I did nothing but overtake all race, only Ben and Nick (1st and 2nd) overtook me and that's a first. I was at threshhold the entire time and stood up and hammered all the climbs, and hooked the descents. Today my quads are aching like hell and stairs are a challenge, so I know I gave it a red hot go :)

30 mins into a 3hr ride on Sunday and it was clear, pushing on would be pointless, I had nothing. Defeated, I got off the trainer and slumped on the lounge in a pool of self pity, it was pathetic ;)

I started to wonder if I would ever come good (yes, I know that's stupid, but that's how it felt), and considered pulling out of the Scott, and even started to wonder about the Fling.

My wonderful, lovelly, god bless them, kids gave me the flu last week. I was smart though and stopped training straight away, after 5 days my feet were so itchy I had to do something, so I hit the gym for a light session of weights, and after 20 minutes, it was clear I shouldn't be there, shivering and sweaty I headed home depressed.

I got a couple of nights of really solid (Codral induced) sleep and felt able to go and try again, so back to the gym Thursday and I felt good for the first half an hour, real good, but then it all went to custard, dizzy and shivering I pulled the pin again.

So after a decade or so of being a cyclist, and a couple of years of racing, the over a year of taking that pretty seriously; I finally took the plunge, well, the razor, and shaved my legs.

I think I am finally making that horrifying transformation from manly mountain biker to big gay road cyclist ;) Nah just kidding, I was never manly :D

After a week of being back into training my apetite has returned, I'm craving food every 2 hours again, but not the full on 'you must eat chocolate and lollies, NOW, NOOOOWW!'; I'm just hungry every two hours for a snack. This change has me wondering if it's a time lag thing...

Back in the saddle this week and it feels gooood. The new bike spins so sweetly and the whole day just feels better when it's started with excersise.

My binge eating has immediately stopped too, and I don't mean I did that with will power, not at all; I just don't crave a bag of lollies or 6 freddo frogs t 3pm or 8pm like I did for the 3 weeks I was off training. I just feel satisified and not has hungry now.

What's that about? You'd think the sugar cravings would be worse when fatigued from training, but for me, they were major while I was off the bike and now completely gone.