Blogs

This was my second ever 50Km race - the other being last years Fling.

In the lead up to this two things happened.

Firstly, I took Mr Shippards advice and rode as much single track as possible.

Secondly, I got a cold.

Swollen glands and a bastard of a sore throat greeted me every morning for the last week and I seriously considered pulling out or at least dropping back tot he 25km race.

Managed to pull off an age cat win but overall not so good.

Hey all - a quick preview of the Kowalski Classic that I wrote for the event promoters.
Hopefully it will inspire you to sign up if you already havent....

https://www.bikeexchange.com.au/blog/kowalski-cl...

An age cat win in canberra - Was not expecting that. Almost made top 10 overall but not quite. Finished 11 overall.

Hard to believe that this was my 6th time racing the Convict, where does the time go!
Just prior to the original date of this race I spent 2 weeks in Europe, snowboarding and belatedly celebrating my 40th birthday. That 2 weeks, as enjoyable as it was, had set me back in terms of training and readiness for the original date and so I wasn’t unhappy when the event was cancelled due to the storms that we had at the time.

Fast forward a few months and training had been going well despite very limited time on the MTB due to the run of wet weather.

After a 1 year absence from the Convict I was eager to get back to St Albans. I ride up there a lot and I really enjoy it. I had ridden reasonably consistently over winter but I wouldn't really call it training. I had done a couple of club races at Ourimbah so that was a nice bit of intensity.

I also had tonsillitis the week leading in but that mostly cleared up and I lined up feeling pretty OK. (haha ok that's all the excuses!)

Having started a new job approximately 8 weeks ago I said to myself I would give my self time to settle into work life and the adjustments that are needed to fit training around work/travel/other commitments and possible look at maybe the fling once I had settled. This lasted approximately 4 weeks before i decided I needed some excitement on the weekends and entered the convict 100 mid July.

My intention was always to enter for the original date but work schedule has been nuts of late so I only got my entry in a week or so ago.

The crowd was well down on previous years and the event centre buzz was not the same, I really hope it was the reschedule that caused this and not the start of this race’s slip from popularity.

Parenting is tricky business in the modern world and can certainly have its up and downs, victories and failures. Today was a victory, when my 12 yo son approached from behind at the 32k mark and said "Dad, keep up the pace"

If you were to ask me how I thought I’d go in the Convict 100 at the end of April, I would have said this would be my strongest race yet. Training had been going well, I was well tuned into the reversed course and had had my mind set on it all year. After its unexpected postponement due to St Albans being flooded, things deteriorated, and circumstances meant that I found that it difficult to physically and mentally find the ability to spend much quality time on the bike, and my mediocre result in the 3 Ring Circus two weeks ago confirmed the effects of this.