Finished

Well what can I say? My back is reminding me how painful that last, um, 65k's was, but gee what a blast! That was an awesome experience and one I'm gunna repeat. I just need to figure out how to keep the back issues at bay because my legs were OK apart from a weak spot at around the 82k mark. (That was because I didn't refill at the last fuelling stop as I wanted to get home under 8 hrs, and promptly sucked my last mouthful of water about 5 minutes later, with 20k's to go. So I was reluctant to eat anything because I wasn't sure I'd be able to swallow it. But I did and the last 10km was a blast (except for that bloody hill after the last creek crossing - who's stupid idea was it to put that there? Talk about demoralising when you're physically spanked and on a schedule!)

I got plenty of nice views of the tree canopy because on several occasions I had to get off the bike & stretch out my back (I think it was 17 times in all, getting progressively more frequent from the 35km mark). In addition I got the early stages of cramp in both hammies 3 times from about 60k's, getting off twice for a stretch/walk, and the 3rd time deciding to grind out the hill in a bigger gear which stopped the legs spinning so fast & cleared the cramp-maybe I was lucky but I'll try that again if I've got the strength.

Had 1 stack about 65k's in which isn't even worth mentioning except to thank Gonz for stopping to check I was OK.

As usual the Rohloff was awesome. In fact the din everyone elses gears made going uphill was positively annoying. I'm of a mind to write a letter of complaint to the council about the noise. Neanderthals!

Quite happy to have finished in 8 hrs under the circumstances (before I got to it I was seriously contemplating pulling out at the 50 mark because I knew from the signs how bad the back was going to be, but a chicken roll & cheese sanger at the halfway point let me see sense!). I was looking for a sub 7.30 finish and my computer said I was moving for 7 hrs and 5, so I'm off to the chiro on Saturday and back to training for the Scott next week in a positive frame of mind.

Maybe the new full susser will help in the back department - it may arrive in time for and make an appearance at the Scott. BRING IT ONNNNNNNNNNN!!