Dan, Adam and I headed North for Round 3 of the 2007 Working Week Series. 8 hours of fun in Wingello Forrest, which we'd previously visited when the three of us did the Highland Fling last last year.
The camping was interesting to say the least, some of the organisers of the race where deeply into the Rum and Coke and playing music well into the night, one of them was blowing a loud horn over and over again, then he got in his car and tooted it's horn, he must have been looking for a fight, I dunno. Eventually some of the campers (trying to get some pre race sleep) got grumpy and there was a screaming match that I thought would end in a punch up. Pretty odd behaviour for grown adults, but hey, Rum can do that.
By 9pm things had settled down and rum-boy pulled his head in and we got some sleep, in the light of a fresh morning, rum-boy was looking pretty sheepish and I think most people laughed it off :)
Dan and Adam were pairing, while I would solo. None of us here to race, more to have some fun. I set out with that in mind and took it really easy from the start, at the 1 hour mark I usually would eat something, but just couldn't stomach anything solid, I couldn't really drink either. I tried to take a bite of an energy cookie, but spat it out. I knew this was the beginning of the end, not a good thing 1 hour into an 8 hour ride...
2 hours went by and I managed (forceably) half a cookie, and I finished my water bootle and headed to camp where I found Adam and Dan were doing well and in high spirits, loving the course which was indeed awesome.
Still unable to eat I pushed on, awaiting the eniviatble blow up that was to come. I just did my usual pedalling along, enjoying myself, everyone flying past me like I was standing still, but I didn't care, I would just pull over and let freight trains of whippets fly past at a time. This was was first multilap race since the Scott 24 6 months ago, and I must say, I do love point to points better, there's no need to ever pull over and let whippets fly past.
At 12:00 or so we were halfway through the race, so I forced down my water bottle (I should have drunk 4 by now, but had only managed 2) and headed to camp, pretty worried that I wouldn;t even finish. Adam was there and told me they were coming 14th! I was stoked for them. They were lapping in the 35 minute ballpark, while I was doing 45's, awesome stuff! I desperately went for the gummi bears and shoved in a couple of handfuls, finally something I could stomach, and grabbed my emeragency bottle of Opti, hoping it could save me, I just felt like a plug was in the bottom of my stomach, it was awful.
5 minutes after taking off on this lap I could hear the jingle jangle of bells, was Santa coming? No, my granny chainring bolts had come loose and the gear was rattling around on the crank arm, just like what happened to me at the Fling. I pulled over and managed to rumage up 3 of the 4 bolts and screw them back in and get going again, how nice it would be to have a mechanical free race, I shouldn't complain though, at least they are usually easily fixed, none have caused a DNF.
After a nice sugar rush lap from the gummi bear sugar, I kept going and pushed into lap 9, of course the gummi bears wore off and I came crashing down; I thought about quitting, and of Kylie and the kids, and "what the hell was I doing here?". The desperate lows of bonking had a hold of me and the end was neigh...
A fellow solo rider told me "don't quit, go back to camp and take a 20 minute break and try and eat", I decided to head the advice and wandered back to camp to hang for a while. Adam was there and they had moved up into 10th place! They were kicking arse, I on the other hand was a mess; I had the shakes and was slurring. Adam gave me an OJ and I shoved in the rest of the gummi bears, I wished I could have eaten something else, something to keep me going, but I just couldn't. I rested a while, then grabbed a couple of gels and headed out for one last lap, there was time there for 3 if I wanted them, but I wanted to enjoy today, not push myself until I puked, so I took my camera and decided to go on a slow and fun tourist lap, managed to get a shot of Adam and the bigger of the water bars in "Tangles", the best of the singketrack on offer, then cruised back to camp and finished the race early, happier than if I pushed myself through another lap or two, but also pretty dissapointed in my result :(
So it was a tough race, I haven't been training for a couple of months and I had gastro this week, but I don't think either of those things was the problem. I dunno what was, but I would have given anything to be able to eat something. Hopefully I'll work out what the problem was before the next one.
The crew:
| Jason | Giant Trance |
| Adam | SC Blur |
| Dan | Turner Flux |
The Stats:
| Result | 24th out of 65 (36%) |
| Distance | 105.2km |
| Time | 7:40 |
| Climb | 1600vm |
| Speed | 15.4km/h avg, 40.9km/h max |
| Power | 155Wavg |
| Date | 15/04/07 |