2008 24hr Solo World Championships

Having managed elite qualification at the National Championships, I arranged a coach to organise my training and whip me into shape. It was a tough 4 months of hard work, but it made some major changes to my base fitness and I quickly found I could be as fast as my top all out speed at much much lower heart rates, my race pace became available at my cruising effort, and I felt ready for the Worlds...

Seeded 170th, I was forced to start right at the back of the pack, I wasn't too concerned, but later the results would show it cost me a full 15 minutes, getting caught in congestion. Completely unaware, I just raced away, and boy, I was having a dead set ball! The course started out with an extra 7km prologue lap around the town of Canmore before we headed into the first of many laps of the 20k course...

The course was fast and flowing for most of the time, open with lots of fire trail, but there were lots of climbs and several descents so steep you couldn't see the bottom until you were halfway down them, weeee! There were a couple of technical sections, one of them 3km long (from the 3-6km mark), and they were tough indeed, tight, twisty, loaded with rocks and roots, tight corners in steep climbs, about as hard as XC courses can get. These sections were hard to get through without getting off the bike, making them worthy of a world championship I think. Once out of them, the many fire trails (old ski runs) gave relief and time to recover or ramp up some speed.

A race highlight for me came mid afternoon, a familiar voice gave me the gee up from behind "go Onya", it was Willo, right on my wheel about to lap me. I jumped of the bike and let him go, returning a "go Willo go!". He was winning the race and Tinker was right on his wheel. They went past and it was amazing to be right there, watching our Aussie World Champion take the title. He looked relaxed and cheery, Tinker on the other hand looked very serious and stressed. Willo was on his way to victory!

As a team we laid down some solid lap times, transitions were fast and everything was going well until about 4pm, when the loudest crack of thunder I'd ever heard echoed through the mountains around us... the Rockies decided to treat us to some of the local weather. The rain was brief, and warm, no drama really, so we continued on, unaffected. Then 4 hours later, another ominous thunder clap deafened us from above, more rain was coming...

This time though, the rain was cold, freezing cold, sleet almost. Snow fell in the mountains around us, and the rain was enough to get me thoroughly wet, and cold. I was freezing and shivering in my short sleeve jersey, I could feel myself shutting down, just like at Tumut. I raced into the midway feed zone hoping Kylie was there with dry clothes or a jacket, but I got there before she expected, so she wasn't there. I had to continue on for the rest of the lap, wet and cold.

At the end of lap 5 we took the first of what would be many long transitions, changing all my clothes for dry and water proof layers and getting my lights on and ready for the night to come. The next lap was an eye opener indeed, the heavy rain had turned what was a fast and fun course into slush, and the roots and rocks that were already tricky, were now slippery and pretty dangerous to be honest. I had to back off the pace big-time to get through the roots safely, and some climbs were no longer rideable having turned to slippery mud, or made impassable by slippery roots. My heart rate plummeted and so did my lap times, I was getting pretty frustrated with the pace in these conditions.

The mud was horrid, it stuck to the tire and built up to the point you could not get any traction, left doing burn outs on the climbs and having to walk. It built up in huge clumps between the tire and frame, jamming the wheel, causing a lot of friction as you pedaled, grinding the mud against the frame. Eventually the mud took it's toll on my crappy old Trance, and even though Adam had tirelessly been cleaning the bikes every lap (you are a legend mate!), and giving me a freshly clean bike that looked brand new straight from the shop for the start of every lap, the derailleur and cables on the Trance jammed up (it's worth nothing that both were brand new having been replaced the week before the race!). I had no gears at the back. Adam put me on the Anthem and sent me out for another lap while they dealt with my broken bike. Having to do a full clean every lap meant I had to swap bikes every lap, so the Trance had to be resurrected, but with no spare derailleur, Adam and Kylie had no way to fix it. Desperate, Adam got on the event microphone and begged the crowd for a spare derailleur for me, and a legendary crew from a Lake Louise bike shop came forward with a derailleur and brand new cable, and they even fitted it! Bring my bike back from the dead. The generosity of fellow competitors at these event just blows me away. It meant we could continue...

It was impossible to see at night, mud was getting flicked up everywhere, into eyes (causing Tinker to withdraw) and for me, all over my face and glasses. My lights were playing up and my old Vicious Arc lighting system was useless at this event. The course was dangerous and slippery and I couldn't see anything through my fogged up muddy covered glasses. Not aware of the cause of my newfound blindness, I said to Kylie "I'm going blind, I can't see anything, it must be the food, we're fueling wrong", she took my glasses off and suddenly I could see, it was a miracle! ;) haha I felt a real fool, so she cleaned them and out I went again, happy to have received the gift of sight... briefly... because the mud would just flick up and dirty them again in the first part of the course anyway. The best I could do was look over my dirty glasses occasionally to get a glimpse of what was ahead.

To make matters worse, my stomach started to cramp big time, I was feeling bloated and horrible. We decided to ditch solid food for a lap and go a liquid lap (Opti and Gels), then return to solids after that, to try and give my stomach some time to process what was in there. It didn't work, in fact as the night went on, my stomach just got angrier and angrier. At times it felt like it was literally tied in a knot. Usually we would run a 24hr with a mix of foods, but traveling to race limited what food we had available, I ran this whole race on artificial foods like power bars and gels. Usually I would use these kinds of foods, but I would also mix up other laps with breads or other natural foods. I'd also introduced Clif Bars to this race, at the last minute. A huge mistake I knew I was making, but they tasted so damned good and packed a good amount of carbs. I tried them on some 2 hour training rides and they were awesome, but after 12 hours out here, my body was rejecting them, and all the other artificial foods too. I couldn't even drink. My legs felt strong in the climbs, but I had no fuel to drive them, I just couldn't get going, it was frustrating.

Suffice it say that around midnight the race was over for me, I was no longer racing at all, merely trying to survive the tretcherous conditions on course, not freeze to death and deal with the fact I couldn't fuel my body.

Then during lap 10, my final lap before the 5am dawn, I put the final nail in the coffin; I did the stupidest thing, I made a left turn, right in front of a clearly marked right turn sign, and off I went into the forest, for a full 5 minutes I rode away from the course, thinking "this all looks a little new, and hey, where is everyone else?", idiot! Once I realised I was lost I started to panic, I was freaking out, screaming for help like a lost child. It was weird, I don't usually panic, but I had no idea where I was. I snapped out of it though and forced myself to retrace my steps, and managed to find the course, along with two other riders that had made the same mistake at the same corner! With all of us back on course, there was relief, but a little anger at the lost time. Then to add insult to injury, my helmet light went flat and I was in the dark. It was hell. I hammered the rest of this lap out the best I could to try and make up the lost time, but it was hopeless, that 15 minutes was gone, with no way of getting it back, especially with no helmet light. I just had to learn to deal with it and get back to transition.

The stress of the wrong turn and having no helmet light took it's toll on my stomach and I finally gave in to the stomach cramps and spent some solid time on the loo (sorry, too much information I know!). With all that artificial food out of my system I felt better, but empty, like a tooth paste tube someone had squeezed until nothing was left inside. I didn't want to ride anymore, I didn't care what my race position was, I just wanted to go to a hotel and die.

Then Kylie had the stroke of genius that brought us back in the game, bread. Plain, simple, white bread. 3 slices of that and I felt incredible, like an empty car just refueled. It was awesome! So I got back on the bike, having just had an 11 minute transition, our longest one of the race, and went out to see how I would go. The sun had come up, and with that, the course started to dry up. A lot of sections that had been unrideable slush bowls during the night became tacky and fun again, it was great!

At the end of the lap I stopped for more miracle bread and we assessed where we were, somehow, amazingly, I was in 2nd place. No idea how that happened, but there it was, and 3rd place was way behind. We had secured a podium position! I was elated! We had time to change clothes, clean up the bike and get back out there for the last lap, knowing we had 2nd place in the bag, the crew decided to use the exact same strategy as we did at Nationals, and that was to slow the pace right down, I walked the full 3km technical section to reduce the risk of a crash, but once out on the fire trails, I couldn't help myself, high on adrenalin and fuelled on my wonderful bread, I opened the taps and hammered the climbs, rocketed down the descents with an ear to ear to grin, and as I came out of the 5km solo only loop, I knew there was only 2km of fast fire trail to the finish, so it was a into the dog for a fast and furious 44/11 smash to the finish. I felt on fire as I crossed the line, we'd done it, 2nd place in my category at a World Championship. We'd represented Australia and brought home the bacon. I couldn't believe it!

One of the most elating, rewarding, wonderful experiences of my life!

Thanx has to go to the many that helped me get there, Neil for the loan of some handlebar lights, Al for his bike carrier which got my beloved Anthem to Canmore intact, Mick from Onya Bike Belconnen for his pre race service and overhaul of both my bikes, my coach Chris for the killer plan that changed me as an athlete in ways I could only dream, Julie for taking two weeks off work to come and mind the kids so Kylie and I could go (let alone other trips from Mildura to watch the kids while I trained), and my kids, who tolertaed a very absent father for the 4 months that I trained hard, then dissapeared with their mother for two weeks to go to Canada, something I'll have to make up to you little stars! Also to my friends and family that followed the Aussies progress over there and sent messages of support, your support was awesome and kept us going. And to Kylie and Adam, for coming with me, putting up with my tired and grumpy mood swings, crazy nutricional needs and their never ending tireless support during the race. Not once did they complain when it rained, snowed, blew a gale, they just dealt with it and kept me going, you guys rock!