jp's blog

I’ve been riding / training pretty consistently for the last few months, but not as seriously as I have in the past. And with most of my rides being pretty short, I wasn’t very confident about the Convict 68. But after pre-riding the course a week before the race I felt OK, and decided to give it a go. I figured I should be able to average a bit over 19km/h and ride it in about 3.5 hours - so I had a goal.

I didn’t expect to end up in the middle of a cattle muster at the Fling, but that’s how I spent part of my race on Sunday.

I went into this race not sure how I would go. Last year my training was very structured and consistently around 12 hours+ per week. That resulted in 11th place in a field of nearly 300. This year it was more like 7 hours a week, but did include some power-based training at Cycle Studio with James Lamb (highly recommended). Overall I knew I was reasonably fit, but not sure if I was as fit as last year.

I love my weekend rides on the local singletrack loop. For me, it’s Old Man’s Valley in Hornsby. I usually combine it with some fire trail/ road segments and hill climbs to get in a solid 3 hour ride early in the day, then spend the rest of the day with my family. I love that feeling of fatigue in my legs all day, as a reminder I “got it done” early.

A few years ago I decided that doing 20 Flings in a row would be a fun goal to set. At about 10am yesterday I decided I was done, 10 was enough. But I’m pleased to say that by 11:15am I was back on track looking forward to Fling number 11.

I had pretty low expectations going into this, having done virtually no riding in the 10 days leading up, and still coughing from a flu that lasted almost 2 weeks. But I was feeling OK and was on a new bike (Giant Anthem) that I only picked up on Thursday. I really approeciated having dual suspension today.

Being a smaller race with a couple of big climbs, I figured this race might be my chance to get somewhere near the podium - something I've never done. I looked up last year's results and the winning time for my age group was about 2:20. So I had my target - to be under 2:30, and as close as possible to 2:20.

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.

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.

About a year ago, following the "Fling Training Weekend", I decided to step up my training. Not in volume, but in quality - so for my last few races I have used a very structured approach for the 6 weeks leading up to the event - hill repeats, threshold intervals, tempo sessions, skills sessions and a weekly endurance ride. This had an immediate impact on my race results, culminating in a 7th (in my age group) in the Convict 50 this year. Not breaking any records, but a nice little step up compared to my previous results. But then it got me wondering what's next.

I've been entering MTB half-marathons for about 10 years now. When I started I was stoked to finish in the top 50%, but today I was stoked to finish in the top 4%. I've certainly stepped up the training over the years, but it's only the last 9 months that I feel like I've started learning how to "race". The real change started when I actually got some coaching - just one weekend (the Fling training weekend with Anthony Shippard and Kyle Ward), but for me it was the start of understanding racing vs riding in a race. Today I felt like I raced.