Blogs

Mild Start, Wild Finish!

Some races have been just a matter of an individuals having good bike handling, pacing and fitness in order to do well. Others have had the whereabouts of other riders - being able to work with and against them - as the critical factor to what determines who stands on the podium at the the end.
The WWR was the latter.

Any updates with all this rain?

Resurrection Mogo - A Fantastic day out on some legendary trails !

http://sxcracing.com/2014-resurrection-mogo-wayne

Resurrection Mogo, was the inaugural event of what could be the long awaited replacement of the loved and despised Angry Doctor. After some large investment by the locals, and support from the local council, the single track in the Mogo area was revitalised to serve up a course that would test the legs and provide the satisfying smiles from the exhilarating descents. One thing is for sure, looking at the profile of this course - there was no easy miles in this one.

This morning was time to try out the new toy, a power meter.

Unfortunately by the time I organised tools this morning, I missed the usable weather window for this weekend, and it started to rain heavily. For some reason, riding in the rain on a roadie doesn't appeal (something to do with the grey sludge from the rapidly wearing rims) so I elected to use the hydraulic trainer in the garage.

Hook up the fan and away we go. The trouble is, I have trouble lasting more than 30 minutes on these inventions of the devil. They're so booooooring.

The Chocolate Foot events are always a lot of fun, good atmosphere, good people and excellently organised and supported. Round 3 of the 2014 Singletrack Mind series took place at Awaba, a trail that I’ve raced a couple of times as part of a team of 3, however this year I was riding the Open Solo Men’s for the SXC Racing team, a solo effort for the first time!

This blog is the next chapter in my "nutrition" journey, and an update to the blog I posted about 11 days ago. It's just over 50 days now since I started on the nutrition program. I'm drinking shakes every day for recovery and as a source of additional protein (and nutrients), as well as eating 3 reasonably healthy meals each day. I take a few supplements as well, and I'm planning to do a 2-day "cleanse" within the next week, then once a month.

An early start on Sunday with Dave (Doc) to get a quick look at the new ST, we got there around 8 and so it seemed did a lot of other people. After a quick chat with the other SXC boys (Graham and Wayne) Dave and I headed out for a quick look, 10km later we were back at the Event Center and ready to go.

What a beautiful day it was, the sun was shining, the temperature wasn’t too cold and I was about to enter my second ever mtb race. I was lucky (or unlucky) to have been granted free entry to the race given a mate at work won a free double pass when he entered and offered it to me, I thought what the hell sounds like fun and I will rope my usual riding buddy in to come. Unfortunately at last minute my mate was struck down the dreaded man flu and couldn’t compete so I would be riding solo.

When I sat down late last year and thought about which races I wanted to enter in 2014, the 3 Ring wasn't on the list. Then I rode Wingello in December and it changed my mind, the flowing singletrack was just too hard to ignore. Unfortunately yesterday I left my climbing legs back in Sydney.

The start chute seemed to fill up very quickly... by the time I got there, I was probably 60-70 people back from the front, but I didn't worry too much - I figured we'd all sort ourselves out by the end of the first loop. This was my first mistake - a lot of people go flat out on the first loop, only to slow down at the first hill or first sign of singletrack. Anyway, I started in about 70th place and slowly worked my way past a few people on that loop. Through the first transition I was on the back of a group 6 or so.