pommyracer's blog

Having improved by nearly an hour over the last 4 half flings that I've done, I was billing this as my main race for the year and knew a lot more about how to train, how to eat and how to race than when I first started a few years back. Sub 3 has been a long term goal for a while.

Preparation didn't go to plan though (I haven't adapted to training whilst having a young baby to look after and have also had a few injury niggles which meant I only did 1 ride of longer than 2 hours in the lead up to the race).

My fourth fling and another great wkend in the Southern Highlands!

Have loved reading all the other blogs on this - def my favourite race of the year (not that I have a terribly wide base!). Since my first fling in 09 I've knocked 50 mins off my time...just another 8 to go and I will retire happy)

Here's a brief overview of my weekend
- I think I've trained harder and smarter for this year's race than in previous years. I was more confident going in and had set myself an ambitious target of sub 3 hours

Have entered a number of shorter marathon races and team lap races in the past, but this was the first solo lap race i've done (maybe a 7 hour race was a bit crazy!). My training has been getting better and so I thought "why not" , lets see what happens.

I've raced at Awaba before in a pairs team and struggled towards the end with cramp. Therefore I knew I needed to self seed pretty well and start at the back. For the first 2 laps I felt pretty comfortable (averaging around 49 min laps). This was a good period to just practice on the course and not worry about people passing me.

This was my 3rd attempt at the half fling and I loved the whole weekend and race.
The atmosphere camping and in bundanoon was great as usual and I'll be back for sure.
The race itself was pretty good, with enough left in terms of improvement in my time to set some goals for next year. My first go at the half fling back in 2009 took nearly 4 hours so I've taken 45 minutes of that already. Will have to take my training more seriously next year as the last 15kms were tough and I think most of the 15 minutes I can take off here in future!

First long pairs race since we got back from travelling. Fairly happy with how we went, considering little training and time on the mountain bike. Results as below:
lap time speed who
10 44:44 16.10 Rachael Povah
9 37:22 19.27 Andrew Povah
8 44:20 16.24 Rachel Povah
7 36:22 19.80 Andrew Povah
6 47:24 15.19 Rachel Povah
5 35:10 20.47 Andrew Povah
4 41:00 17.56 Rachel Povah
3 34:16 21.01 Andrew Povah
2 41:38 17.29 Rachel Povah
1 36:55 19.50 Andrew Povah

This was our (me and my gf Rach) first ever ride at Awaba and our first go at the Spring Fat Tyre. We thoroughly enjoyed our day and loved the track, the people and the organisation, we'll def be back for more! Some highlights include:

- only 1 stack each and nothing major. mine resulting in a bent rear brake rotor (which the CBD guys fixed in a jiffy) and Rach's in some scrapes and bruises (but they didn't start hurting until the day after!)

My first race blog!

My 2nd attempt at the Half Fling and the first race I had a previous time to try and beat. Successfully took over 30mins from my 2009 time so was very pleased with that (even though I felt the 2010 course was tougher and the heat made things harder).

Overall i was pretty pleased with this effort, paced myself aswell as I could, no cramps and didn't feel i had much left at the end unlike last year. heat and a lack of fitness meant my second half was about 5-10 minutes slower than maybe I could have done, but that always gives me something to come back for next year.