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Old body makes the (soft) distance


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By Bikeboy - Posted on 01 June 2010

Re: This ride meeting: 
Capital Punishment 2010
Status: 
Finished
Laps: 
1
Time: 
04:05:00
Position (Overall): 
391
Race Category: 
50km/Male/Veteran
Position (Category): 
77

What a ride ...... This was a race i have been looking forward to for a long time as i am fortunate enough to ride Canberra trails on a very regular basis due to my work , although the ride groups usually range from one to about a dozen if i can muster up enough locals for a decent ride there ...

The 50 K event started with just a bit of rain falling but it was soon apparent that there had been significant overnight rain and my glasses , which i increasingly need to ride these days, were only used as a facial mudguard after around 400 meters ..... no problem just need to concentrate a little more . The first fire road through to the top of Majura certainly got the heart rate up ( My highest ever reading of 182 near the top of the first little pinch ) the Majura Pines was the highlight of the day for me although starting to show signs of damage was a heap of fun .

The next section of paddock was a real energy sapper for me and my heart rate stayed over the 90% mark for the whole of this untill the road ,which was a welcome break to the mud slog and the first opportunity to get some wind in the hair .....From this point on through EPIC i started to realise i went too hard too early , and the scarey thing was it was a pretty slow pace

Fire road ....Tar for 7 k's in the dry would have been a tad boring i think but it really was an easier way to try and recover on the go .

Pretty much uneventful until just about the end of the cork plantation where a woman had a serious off and was banged up pretty badly and out cold on a very slippery clay downhill section of fireroad . I have since found out that she had been in a medically induced coma until yesterday , and now recognises her family . After stopping for a few minutes and also realising i had Absolutely no idea what to do in this situation , made a bline for the next check point to ensure an ambulance was going to get through ...........This had an impact on the rest of my day ....

After this it is a bit of a blur but Deeks forest was a mud bowl and anything resembling an upward slope was impossible to climb with my rear tyre ( Kenda Small Block eight ) and from about this point my body was reminding me that my training rides consisted of no more than 30 - 35 k's .....Big mistake .....

Stromlo was a welcome sight as i know this place quite well BUT i also know that climb would be a killer ......and it was ..... the first time i have needed to use granny to climb here But ,like most others the decent was a blast and rounding the crit track to cross the finish line was very satisfying ....

My only goal was to finish under four hours and i suppose 4:05 was ok but i have to add 22 min because of the untimed road section .

Result , had a great day and got to meet heaps of smiling , grumpy , frustrated , muddy but overwhelmingly satisfied people .

Lessons learnt , Train smarter and hold back a tad unless training smarter

Best Mountain Bike