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I'd never been to Kowan before this race, so I spent the ride feeling like a kid on Christmas Day - every turn was like opening a new present, but instead of toys I got an endless supply of singletrack. I spent the first 30kms grinning my head off, riding and occasionally chatting with a great bunch of guys. It really didn't feel like a race, just like a fun day out with a bunch of mates. My training for this event was rudely interrupted by a couple of weeks off the bike with flu, so I didn't have great expectations of a particularly fast time. But in a way that was nice...

Did the half, but no heroics to report here. Congrats to all that did well.

My last full marathon was The Convict 100 in May and after a bit of a break I decided I needed a bit more of a structured training program. I approached Anthony and Kyle from Pepper Coaching and come July, Kyle was set to coach me and the Pepper program had started. Without going into the detail the commitment means now the alarm is set for 4:30am most weekday mornings.

A few training phases later the Kowalski Classic was set to be my first full marathon where my training wasn't hindered by sickness etc.

I signed up to this race thinking that it will motivate me to train and ride more. Well it did, and I even bought a new Epic 29er for this event.

Everything went well up until 2 weeks before the race, I was down with hand foot and mouth disease which means painful blisters on my feet on hands and worst of all no riding.
Following that, the Monday before the race I woke up with a painful gout on my left knee, so painful that I couldn't walk for 1 day. A lump about the size of a grape was visible on my left knee, things weren't looking good.

Question 1: 650 cyclists approach a track junction with the course marking towards the singletrack off to the left. 50 miss the turnoff and keep going straight down the firetrail. How many cyclists enter the singletrack?

Question 2: A course has a 20 vertical metre climb, a 100 vertical metre climb and a 70 metre climb. The race starts and finishes in the same place. What is the net elevation change in the descending on the track?

Answer 1: Total riders entering junction = total riders leaving junction.
650 = 50 + n(singletrack)
n(singletrack) = 600

Instead of writing a whole bunch of words about the race (frankly, I am sure you have heard enough from me recently!) I thought I’d just list the points of the race that really stood out for me today:

1. How cold was the start? Warming up was freezing! 1 degree.
2. On the startline, Kyle Wards (Rockstar) bottle cage broke 30secs before the gun #notideal
3. Any cold I might have felt was soon forgotten up the big, first climb.
4. After 1km of straight uphill, we hit the SingleTrack – I had decided on a slow start, so was in about 25th position, at the back of the group

I work for Mountain Sports, which is putting on the Kanangra Classic mountain biking event on October 20. I think Kanangra-Boyd National Park is a very special place. Here is a story I've written about the Kanangra Classic you might find interesting.
Regards, Daniel Lewis

In 1931, the renowned bushwalker and conservationist Myles Dunphy and his wife Margaret explored the wild Kanangra region of the Greater Blue Mountains, pushing and pulling and sometimes having to carry a strange object that made people stare with amazement.

what an incredible place to have a race, for those who made the effort to venture out to Coolah they were rewarded with spectacular scenery great atmosphere and perfect weather.

There are few tracks that I've ridden that I think more of than the Wagga Pom Park singletrack loop. With as much flow and dipping as Awaba, epic descents such as Stromlo, it's hard to fault this track. Even in the 6th lap of the course when I was absolutely exhausted, it was hard not to smile as I descended the mountain with adrenaline pumping dips and newly made berms.

BACKGROUND

My event started back in July when I was talking on the phone with my mate Gordo about my training which has improved this year and next thing I'm in his lounge room for half a day taking in an enormous amount of notes as he offers to coach me and starts by sharing his experiences and tips with me and builds my training plan. As an aside, I always assumed he wins the tough races because he's prepared to live inside the hurt box more than anyone else but now realise he's a perfectionist and lives by the mantra "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect".