Capital Punishment

Its been two years since my only Capital Punishment race so was happy to go back down to Canberra for another go.

I lined up in the first wave with what seemed like about 20% of the 100k field. The start was the usual hectic mess. It seems the faster I get the more important it is to go faster at the start. The training I have been doing and all the road racing over summer has been helping with my speed but I still struggle a bit with my pace at the start in comparison with my speed through the singletrack. I guess thats just the reality of being in the old and slow category trying to race younger guys with more power. I had a pretty uneventful race for the first few sections and ended up in a group of 5 that included Doc and was comfortable in the singletarck but had to work hard on the fire road sections.
When we got to the start of the fire road section transitioning across to Majura Pines there was s small mound followed by another gate onto a road section. I was sitting on the back of the group going into this section and unfortunately Doc who was 3rd in the group cramped and held us up for a while while he freewheeled. Doc and the guy in 4th then sprinted off up the road trying to catch the first 2 guys who had about 30 meters lead. Anyway there was a gap of about 5 metres between each of us and Doc and the guy in 4th were able to close the gap. For me I got close but eventually it started to open up again and I spent the rest of the fire road on my own. Its funny and frustrating how a few seconds delay turns into 1:30 at the next timing mat.

Once I got to the untimed section I stopped for a quick chat with Ant and Kyle. Got some food from them and then headed off to the 65k feed station for some endura. Filled up my bottle and had a few extra cups and hoped that would be enough fluid to get me to the finish. I headed off to black mountain and was expecting to have a bit of a rest there before starting again. Doc had spent longer at the feed station and took off as soon as we got there so I decided to head off with him. This triggered a flurry of activity and Gary James and a few of Dicko's mates took off as soon as we left. Things split apart in the first few hills and Garry and a few of the other guys got away. I managed to stay with Doc for a fair bit of the arbitorium and was getting a god tow behind one of the local A grade roadies on the flat sections. At this stage my average speed was over 21 including the untimed section so was pretty happy with how things were going. Around the 80K mark my stomach started complaining and after a couple of small spews I found I had to slow down a lot to feel any better. I was very close to pulling out when I got to stromlo but decided to try and finish. It was pretty frustrating going so slow up the hill but I felt a lot better on the way down.
While I was pretty frustrated with loosing some time at the finish I don't think it changed where I would have finished in my class. Seems I need to go quicker in the early fire road and singletrack sections to get a better overall result. Maybe next year.