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Being my first race after leaving school, I figured (what was then) Dirtworks was a great one to start in because (a) I've always loved GNR, (b) It's relatively close, (c) It's well known and (d) because it's such a great challenge featuring all different type of terrain, from the feel of Tour de France at the beginning to a world champion MTB race in the overgrown part of GNR.

PREPARATION

I was lucky to get to the camp site mid afternoon Friday to secure our usual camp spot and be able to chill out enjoying the blue sky while catching up with friends.

3 Marathons in 3 weeks is what I was thinking in the week leading up to this race. I would have to say the body was beginning to feel the rigour from the previous 2 weeks. After a warm up ride on the Wednesday preceeding the race I was confident I was strong and ready for the weekend. I was also motivated from my results in the two first rounds.

Convict 100 - bring it on !

What a fast race!

Was not expecting to go as hard or fast as I did.

Did the race with a mate and I said to him at the 10k mark 'gee this is a fast pace'

His reply ' we are averaging 31k's................ thats faster then we do on our road bikes!'

great day as Arnie said I'll be back.

The Convict 100 (formerly Dirtworks 100) holds a very special place in my heart. I have fond personal memories of my first ride 4 years ago, resulting in a 5hr 35mins mid-pack result.
The next year, I went back, better prepared and rode to a 4hr41min (and about 17th place).
Last year was different. Something in my riding clicked last year, and I was starting to ride towards the front of the pack.
I pushed and hurt and bled, and cried, and rode a 4hr14min race resulting in 5th place.

Ok, I beat him because he dnf'd. I'll take it anyway.

I started with a few hot Nobmobbers around me - Steve01, ps & the man of the moment Dicko. Just ahead of us in the first wave was the always easy to spot on the start line Antsonline. I was really hoping Ant would get a podium this year as he's been getting close and of course us Nobmobbers all claim him as one of ours!

Hi All,

Got hooked with MTBing about 9 months ago and have lost 25kg in the process. Now I'm only fat instead of obsese - lol.
Anyway - a few mates and I made some weird pact that we should give this go and why settle for just doing 50km when you can wipe yourself out on 100km?

Through our training and also doing about 75% of the course 4 weeks ago cramping was my major weakness but I managed that quite well yesterday.

Ahh the dirtworks.. over the years this has been that “one” event for me, as it was my very first race of any distance just after I changed my life by losing a real lot of weight and got into ridding mountain bikes, the first year I did 8:10, next year I did 7:10 and last year I wanted 6 hours but ended up with a DNF.. so this year I really didn’t care who beat me or who I beat as long as I worked to my time of 6:00 I’d be super happy and as an extra bonus if I could finish the race without needing an ASS transplant, as I was riding a hardtail this year, I’d be super double happy.

This was the race I was aiming for in 2012. Having done this the previous two years in 2010 taking 07:32:53 and 2011 06:27:49 my goal for this year was 05:30:00.

With the Capital Punishment being rescheduled this meant I had the Wombat 100, then the Capital Punishment and then the Convict 100 all in consecutive weekends. This meant not only going for my goal time I was backing up from two other races.