After nearly 2 months off the bike I lined up for what was to 49.9klms of pain, the first 100 metres was pretty easy going but it was all uphill from there, well for the most part anyway, it was about a 4klm ride from the start line to the start of the hill on Wild Dog road followed by about 40 klms of hills, the last few klms before the finish line was downhill. I left the start line thinking I would be happy if I could just make it to the top of the hill, when I had made it there I was thinking I would be happy if I could just make it to the 20klm mark, then once I had made it there it was the next checkpoint and so on and so on, so anyway I did managed to make it the whole 50klms and crossed the finish line in 5hours 48minutes, 1 hour and 18 minutes after Chris Jongewaard finished the 100klm race, oh well the knee held up for it, started hurting at the 40 klm mark but was pretty much down hill for a lot of the last 10 klms, I enjoyed the race in that I didn't go there with the intention of racing, all I wanted to do was finish the race, I went at a fairly relaxed pace (obviously looking at my results) and chatted to the few stragglers that were at the back of the field along with me, plenty of climbing resulting in a walking race to the top, although if I wasn't so worried about my knee I would have ridden a lot more than I did, the descents were fast and furious, with a few close calls on a couple of them, not too sure how fast I was going but I definitely wasn't holding back on the descents and can only assume I was going well over 50 klms an hour which wouldn't be pretty coming off at that speed, I heard that one descent in particular claimed 5 collarbones! Plenty of carnage along the way and one crazy dude Andrew and I had seen on the Friday night riding back from Registration at Forrest to Apollo Bay (I can only assume he rode there in the first place too) his bike was an old heavy metal thing chock full with panier rack and saddle bags, when we saw him on the way to Forrest he was stopped on the side of the road about 20 klms out of Apollo Bay then on the way back he was stoped in Apollo Bay, he definitely didnt look like he was doing it easy, anyway the last thought on our minds was that he would be a competitor the next day, turns out he was, heavy bike in tow and still complete with saddle bags! He had a 100klm plate on but I saw him before the 30klm mark and he was not in a good way, other riders had stopped to help but he wouldnt talk to them, anyway I can only assume his race ended prematurely, congrats to him if he did actually finish the 100.
So all up it was an interesting weekend indeed, with a house full of 7 and a wedding proposal thrown in to the mix, James McArdle proposed to his beautiful bride to be Sharon Marston at the finish line of the 100klm race, Sandy finished a very respectable 15th place in the womens out of 49 and 318th out of over 800 riders more than 750 of them being male, Andrew Liu and Andrew Nurse both finished in the top quarted of the field in the 50klm race.
If you asked me if I would do it again I would probably say no, if I can this knee sorted and things back on track I will have a crack at the 100 next year but otherwise I wont be riding the 50k race again, the new Trek bike handled beautifully with no mechanicals to mention.
Until next time happy biking!
Kat
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