Brian's blog

Awesome Event

This year for the 8 ¼ hour I signed up with Craig (craked) and Wayne (Dicko) for the Male Threes as “The good, the bad and the ugly"

Phil, Jos and Michael were signed up as the “Iron Horse Pony Club”

We all put in $20 and the fastest lap between the two teams would take the pot. Our first goal was to beat the Ponies and second was to take home the cash. We achieved the first as the Ponies claimed the fastest lap with Michael doing a 37:30 on his second lap. Well done mate.

First thing, what a well organised event this is. The place was just totally buzzing. The scenery on the course is just amazing as well.

I didn't know what to expect going into this. Looking at what times it had previously been done in I was thinking 6.5-7hours and considering my stomach issues of late I was just going to see how I felt after each stage.

The first stage went pretty quick and I have an average of 22.2km/h. Got to Wingello oval and new even though that was quick I wasn't able to eat and drink much. I topped up my water, had a bit of coke and was off for stage two.

That was tough today. This was my first 100km race on the 29er HT.

I started today’s race with Wayne. My plan was one stop at the 56km water stop which I knew was cutting it fine but thought as it as cooler I should be ok.

The gun went and heading up the golf course my race was nearly over when a stick flew up into my rear wheel but I was lucky after it freed itself with no damage.

First race on the 29er and managed a top 10 finish although it was a small field of riders

These were full laps including the new bits and the track was in surpisingly good condition and dry.

This was my 2nd 100km event and the first being last years Dirtworks. Last year I did it in 07:32:52 and one of my goals for 2011 was to do the DW100 in 6-6.5 hours.

I’ll start by saying I had an awesome time for my first 24hr event. The team members were (alphabetically) brakeburner, Brian, craked, Logan, loki & Rob. Rob has been out injured so we weren’t expecting many laps from him and he didn’t disappoint .

I arrived Friday mid morning to find we had a spot in the overflow area. At first I was thinking WTF, the grass was knee high and if you’d laid your bike down you would lose it. Anyway, it didn’t take long before it was starting to get trampled and ended up being a really good spot.

Round 2. They made us do the red loop today adding 6km from last round and including Camelback Climb.

I started mid pack and didn't smash myself at the start this time. I was happy just sitting back as it felt like we were doing a decent pace without totally smashing myself which I find is a very fine line for me. I averaged 175bpm for the whole race which is 89% of my max HR.

I can't remember being passed this round which was good. It will be interesting where I came and how many riders there were as it looked like a decent turn out (108 riders)

Position after Lap 1 - 17

I did a nice easy ride to West Head and back last night from Bayview. This is a regular ride I do and is 43km long. My aim last night was to keep the heart rate down and make it a nice slow recovery ride.

Below I have overlaid my heart rate from 3 of the exact same rides.

The ride from the 28/10/2009 (blue) took 01:55:37 was one of my first rides back after having a busy 2009 with work and not much (read zero) exercise.

The ride from the 10/02/2011 (red) took 01:34:23 and is the fastest time I have done it in. My goal is 01:26:00 which is 30km/h.

As I joined HMBA as part of the Spring Fat Tyre Fest I thought I would have a go a racing up there this year. I entered C grade and which is 3 laps (8km+6km+6km). I struggled big time which I knew I would as I haven't been doing any intense rides so time to change the training I think.

Position after Lap 1 - 13
Position after Lap 2 - 17
Position after Lap 3 - 20

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