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I was certainly underdone going in and a friend reassured me that single track and mountain air would get me through, and so it was.

It was a tough red ring, LOTS more single track but largely great fun. I was stuck in traffic for most of it, (made me feel faster). My recent upgrade to XT brakes made a fantastic difference. Everyone I was following seemed to continually lock the rear wheel, but the XTs are so subtle I rarely if ever had a lock up. A soft rear tyre slowed the last section a bit and my speedy transition plan, lost a few minutes pumping it up.

First race after 2 months overseas without a bike and a couple of weeks recovering from manflu when I got back, so a fair bit underdone and even more overweight than usual. Enjoyed the single track as always (although there are some narrow tree gaps for a big bloke on a big bike), but will have to go back for a clean run at the main new bit, as it was a traffic jam. Could do with a few less km's hauling my carcass up all those fire trail hills however.....

Some races can be just 'all out' from the gun. Others need a little bit of planning and tactics. This race (assuming you have your best climbing legs) is the latter.

The weekend was shaped up to be one of this 'epic' weekends away. The forecast was for sunny conditions and not too cold, and everybody was anticipating riding those spectacular trails that Mogo has to offer.

Everybody loves a roadtrip and the Chocy Foot race gave the SXC Racing boys a great excuse to get away as a team and just ride. For this round we had our Masters team of 3, represented by Dave, Matt and Gary, and Graham and myself doing the 4hr solo.

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.

A NEW LEVEL OF FATIGUE!

Ever since I discovered that there was an Under 23 category for 24 hour racing, I had contemplated having a go at one. Although the most I'd done in previous races was 100km events, I have done 12 and 24h rogaines (on-foot navigation competitions), so I had hoped that I'd be able to merge my cycling ability with my long-term endurance. To put things mildly though, a 24h (solo) on the bike is a a big step up from a marathon, so before I did one of them, I needed an intermediate type of event that would get me a feel for what this type of riding would be like.

What a Cold morning, I think my ears froze as soon as I stepped out of the car at Woodford.

My only goal was to break the hour mark, last year my time was 1:00:11 so I knew I could do it.
I started at the very back of the 30-39 (Wave D). As soon as I crossed the starting line I started moving up the pack and continued to do so along the firetrail. I rode every climb at a slow and steady pace to not burn myself out and used that reserve of energy to pick my pace up at the top of each climb.

Well what a day. I set myself 3 goals for this event, 1. Start the race incident free, 2. Finish the race unbroken and bike in good shape and 3. Don't come last.

This was my first official race since starting up MTBing in Mar 2014, and last time I did something like this was on motocross bike a decade or so ago. I tookup MTBing to get some fitness and to clean/clear the lungs of 38yrs of smoking and more than happy with the result. If nothing else this will give me a basis to start with.

http://www.multisportaustralia.com.au/Home/Indiv...

Only ~2 minutes better than last year. I guess I really need to work on my DH skills.
Slow and steady improvement
54% overall / 66% by age / 60% by gender

http://www.multisportaustralia.com.au/Home/Indiv...
== Edit ==
Added the finishing certificate.
It shows a few seconds less then my cylemeter or the official timer counted. Oh well. Maybe the more in the past the faster I get. Must be.