Sub 6hrs - finally

Yesterday I was way more prepared than DW. I got a lift down with matt_b the day before and got a good nights rest at my friends beach house. A chilly 5am and 6 deg wakeup it didn't take long before all the boys in the house were all fired up for the ride ahead. With the slow cooker all loaded up all that was needed was to set it going, lock up, race and come back all in one piece 7 hours later. Easy right?

The race itself got off to a good start. Nice gentle pace and nothing too quick. I was out front setting the pace averaging around the 22km/hr mark for the first 20km or so. I let Nige and Jos have a go for a bit and that's when I fell off the back of the train. So much to the 'let's ride this as a team and support each other" talk we had been having in the week prior.

I caught them up at the first water station, Nige was watering the plants and Jos was digging around in his pack. I had no intention of stopping yet so I saw this as a good opportunity to slip by them without either noticing. Sadly Jos looked up, just as I was passing. So no cheeky mind games from me it would seem. It certainly put wind in their sales though and soon enough they had both raced off and caught me up again.

I chased the pair of them to the 50 and then lost them altogether. I saw neither till the end.

My camelpak still felt quite full and decided there was nothing the the feed station could offer me that I didn't already have so made the call to push through the 2nd station. At this point I'm now thinking I could possibly go the whole way without stopping at all.

I knew my only chance of catching the boys was to not stop and hoped that they would bonk around the 70 mark. I was also pretty sure they only way I was going to break my 6 hour voodoo was also to not stop. So the the third and final feed station came and went. I couldn't believe what I was doing, 100km non-stop! And no water refill! Am I mad?

The last 20-25kms or so was the worse. I desperately needed to go to the bathroom and knew I really couldn't afford the time penalty. Somehow I managed to hold it in, fighting the idea that pissing myself on the bike might give me the relief I wanted was actually a good idea. I reached the 85km at exactly 5hours, so that gave me 1hr in which to ride just 15kms - easy! YES I'm still in this for a sub 6!. My average speed was slightly over 16.5km/hr so it looked doable. I pushed on fighting the urge to pee. I screamed through the last 5kms the end was insight and the clock ticking dangerously close to 6hrs.

The trail conditions were good, reasonably marked, but was very easy to go off course if you weren't paying attention, which is what I did. Thanks to some guy called Anthony (who I never saw as he was always talking to me from behind) yelled out to me. Another rider followed me off course too, sorry about that whoever you were.

The water crossings were horrible!!! Giant deep muddy boggy stinky filthy things. I'm a short arse and the depth of some of those nasty sticky wet holes went all the up to my fire hose.

Plenty of sniggle dotted with jumps, rollovers, logs, ladders and even a skinny balance bridge to keep you on your toes and the fireroads were overgrown enough to be almost single track too.

It wasn't easy, it kept you peddling the whole way, but was by far my quickest 100. I'll be back again next year

Was amazed I still had 1 litre of water left in the pack when I got home too - I only took 2 with me to start!!!