The perfect hard man race.

The one thing I am not going to do is complain about how wet and cold and muddy it was, it was obvious from the forecast that it was going to be wet, I just had to HTFU and get out there.

For this race, my master-stroke of stupidity was assuming that the other guys I was with where going to be racing at the pointy end with me, I have no idea why I as thinking that, but when I heard lozza say the words "social ride" on the start line it clicked, then something else clicked, I had already missed the first 5 waves of starters - ARGH. So that saw me riding behind slower riders pretty much until the end of the second load of single track, a good 30 kays in. I was able to overtake on the fire trail but I would just join the back of another train a minute or so later. One reason it was so slow was the mud - it was certainly keeping everyone honest, but as long as you could un-clip easily it was fine. Which is why having a cleat jam into my pedal for almost the entire race made it so much fun. I must have fallen over into the mud about 5 times, my foot just wouldn't come out. But that was OK, I could just ride up all the hills and never have to get off, which is why loosing my granny gear was so great, and having zero traction in Majura pines was pretty ace as well. I was having a hoot really.

Once I got some open track there where sections of single that where quite ridable, I was able to get into a nice groove and starting chucking the bike around, while chatting to the odd rider doing a similar pace.

The sections of fields linking up the single track were a bit average but better than just road I guess and the signs were really good, the best I have seen I think. Also the weather was being kind to us, apart from some rain at the start it was dry for the whole race.

The un-timed section along the road should have been a welcome break but actually slowing the place just brought fatigue, it was good to get to the end of that and put the hammer down again. This left Stromlo, and the first section was by far the least tractable of all the single track, I don't know if this was a new section but I just couldn't ride it at all, which, with my foot stuck in the pedal was a hoot and a holler, I felt like I was wading in the trenches of the Somme. Once through that section we were onto the sand of the up hill proper, and this was by far the best surface of the whole race. The grip was epic and I timed the sugar spike of a free gel perfectly (thanks to some brilliantly positions volunteers!). By this time my bike must have weighed about 20 kilos with all the mud and was silent which made the berm track downhill simply epic, I was the silver surfer, smashing my front wheel into berms full tilt and whipping the bike from one side to the other underneath me, I'll be dreaming about this for a long time

And that was it, I got over the line in around 6:20 I think and then the heavens opened. Waiting around in the cold at the end would have been a bit rubbish if I was complaining, which I'm not. But if I was complaining I might have been heard saying something about having to get warm before something a bit physically negative occurred inside my body so I decided to stop waiting for the others and get a bus back to the 100km start point (an hour away). By the time I got there the rain was really quite apparent, and there was some wind too, and a bit of cold. I felt like a refugee, being forced to stand stark bollock naked in a muddy field, in a thunderstorm, in 6 degrees, loading my muddy bike into a brand new hire car, and removing the mud out of my arse crack with a muddy sock - perfect.

There, didn't complain once