I travelled up to Apollo Bay on the Tuesday before the race to have a few days of rest and relaxation, after being lucky enough to travel around this beautiful country of ours I would have to say the Apollo Bay is one of the best places in all of Aus, the beach is absolutely immaculate, as you walk in to the ocean you are surrounded by sea life, fish, crabs, shrimp, birds, seals and the odd sting ray, perhaps not what everyone would want to come across but it was pretty amazing, there are 3 resident sting rays I am told that live at the marina there, Stumpy (my creative name for this fella) my favourite has his stinger missing, the other has half its stinger missing and the other has a very large one still attached, you can sort of see him in the photo below, it doesn't do it justice though, the sting ray is about 3 or 4 feet wide, I am not good with measurements but it was big. I have attached a few happy snaps from the trip below. Enjoy
12 Apostles at Sunset
Warrnambool
Inquisitive Seagul
Well I finished, in a time of 7 hours and 50 seconds, unfortunately that was my time for the 50klm race and not the 100klm leg, the day started off with me having had little sleep the night before, a fairly lateish night, 10pm, which for the night before a race when you have to get up at 5am is not ideal at all, then kept waking throughout the night and eventually fell in to a deep sleep just as my alarm went off, got up had a shower etc. and headed off to from Apollo Bay to Forrest, the line of cars waiting to park was ridiculous, a $3 parking fee was also a bit excessive, I know I know its only $3 but honestly, after paying nearly $100 to race I think the parking could have been free, so anyway, parked the car and started getting ready, went to put my glasses on and I have only one arm attached to the lenses, the screw had fallen out of the arm, I wonder if this counts as a mechanical and justification of pulling even before the race start? No, probably not so I head off for a much needed pit stop, after possibly hydrating a bit too much on the way there, line up right at the back of 500 riders and take off just after 8am.
Steady ride along the coast, what a view, the ocean that is
Hydrating and relaxing before the race
Hot and bothered after the race
Much happier an hour or so later, Sandy, 3 Andrew's, me and Kuba
We head off up a dirt road which is a gentle climb for maybe 1klm, this takes us to the series of "walls" as one rider has described them, I don't know how many of these "walls" I came across but there were many, some feeling like I was about to climb the side of the Eureka tower, well that's a bit of an exaggeration but at the time they just seemed to never end, once you made your way though the climbs it was on to some very fast fire road descents, I was able to pass a few of the girls ahead of me that had passed me on the climbs and I knew that mostly the rest ahead of me was mainly downhill so I tried to keep a lead on them, on to some sweet single track for the first time, what a nice ride after all the fire road climbing, here again I passed a few riders and was feeling pretty good knowing I was nearing the end of the first 25klms, as I pulled out on the dirt road to head back to the Footy ground I was feeling surprisingly good, I
had planned on doing the first half in about 3 hours and estimated the second half would take about 2-2&1/2 hours, I filled up my 2 bottles at the only water stop for the race on my way through the footy ground, I had already gone through two 800ml bottles of water, 2 gels, and 1 apricot bar, I didn't feel like eating but was feeling flat so scoffed one on the way to the footy ground, so anyway I filled up my water bottles had a few big gulps then filled them up some more, downed another gel and I was off on the 2nd half of the race, I felt good until I hit the first hill and my legs were really feeling it, I kept at it and made it to the first single track section, this set me off along with the 100klm riders, annoying for them and annoying for me as I was stopping to let them pass, this went on for a while, after one more shared section it was back to the 50klm only track, I had gone for about 10klms thinking I was about more than half way through when I started to run out of water, I was down to about 200 mils and came across a marshal, he said I still had at least 15 klms to go and that he had no water, I came across
another marshal with about 12 klms to go and they too had no water, at this stage I was nearly out of water, along with the other riders around me, we figured there would be another checkpoint nearby and we could ask them for water hoping they would have some there, well that checkpoint didn't come for another 10klms, they did have water but at this stage it was too late, the last 2klms was just a downhill dirt road and then down hill to finish line, took all of 5 minutes to get there and no need for water, well there was to try and rehydrate but it was too late to be of any help.
The temp apparently got up to 34 degrees, it was also pretty humid which contributed to the heat exhaustion and dehydration I was feeling, I had to stop for a while and take my helmet and gloves off, this didn't do much so I parked myself under the shade and behind a tree and took my jersey off, there was a slight cool breeze coming through, I sat here for ages and not another rider came past, I was worried I was on the wrong track, but as I was way behind the majority of the field there weren't many riders behind me and judging by the times of the riders coming through after me they had a big struggle too, 8 hours 27 minutes was the time of the last 50k rider that finished.
I cant say if I will or wont do the race again next year, I think the course was great and a big improvement on last years course, if I was to do it again it will only be if my fitness has greatly improved, between my studies and work this year I don't think I can put the effort in to it to be able to do it in a decent time, I think for now I will stick to XC racing and the odd enduro and take it from there.
So after a very nice, stress free 6 days in Apollo Bay I am back in Melbourne, back to work all day tomorrow and uni tomorrow night, bills, assignments, dirty beaches, annoying traffic and noisy trucks on my doorstep, why do I live here? To pay the bills and be able to get my assignments done, perhaps when uni is finished I could be living in a place like Apollo Bay.......... I can only dream, well until those bloody noisy trucks wake me up!
Until next time, happy biking
Stay safe
Kat
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