ps's blog

This race was initially scheduled for Mt Annan however a bit of midweek rain had the promoter swapping the locations for Rd2 & 3. I like Awaba so stayed positive despite a few ml of rain in the days leading up the race.

Went into this race with limited training and ended up with my best result so far this XCM season so pretty happy with how things turned out. Had a pretty uneventful race. I passed Jason English at one stage, then he got back on his bike and rode back to the front of the elites. The ride of the day in my book.

Managed to get sick leading into this race so was still a bit apprehensive sitting on the start line even though I had done a good training session on Thursday. Got to the first hill in the lead pack fairly comfortably and then got blocked by an inconsiderate rider on the early part of the hill. Doc rode past me while I walked up to a water bar to restart. Didn't ride that well in the first fire road section through to the first water stop although after that sharp right hander and the start of the techie section began to enjoy myself.

Had a good ride this year. No bike problems & the weather was mild. Tried to push hard at the start and was a bit more conservative towards the end.
Pitty this race is such a long way from everywhere. Very scenic course and a rough descent that lasts for 35k. Well organized event.

Team events are so much fun. If only they didn't hurt so much.

The weekend consisted of a Super D Friday afternoon followed by an XCO race on Saturday around a 5k loop with a 23k Point to Point race Sunday morning. This was my first super masters event so was not sure how I would go. It pissed down with rain and hail about 15 minutes before the start of the SuperD so they delayed it for a while until the rain cleared.

With a course designed by Jason English this was always going to be a tough race. I entered when it was part of the CycleNation series and my brother was planning on coming down from Queensland so when it got rescheduled we decided to still do the race.
With the Fling last week I pulled up reasonably well and felt really good on Monday's recovery ride. The 60mm of rain two days before the race had me changing to new pads and applying the wet lube.

Overall another well run event by Wild Horizons. I guess the support from the Bundanoon village makes it seem special.
Suffered badly with cramps in this race last year so was hopping for a trouble free race and an hours improvement for a finish time around 5:30. Had taken a different training approach in the lead up so was also keen to see how that worked out on the day.

When Craig asked me to be part of a masters team for the 12 hours I didn't really know what to expect. I had only done one teams event before and we didn't actually "race" that event as we were all there to support my brother in the 24hr worlds. Getting closer to the race it was clear that we had a pretty strong masters team and if things went well would have a shot at the podium.

This was my first repeat race so was hoping to go faster than last year. Ended up doing that but only by about 20 minutes. Guess it was a tough day cause the elites were 24 minutes slower than last year. Overall I moved forward about 100 places from last year so I guess thats the most relevant way of measuring the improvement. Got to be happy with that.
After feeling good last week on the back of limited preparation I was hoping that a few hours light training during the week would result in another good day. It didn't end up being a good day but I guess it didn't turn out that bad.