Tougher than I remember

I started in the second group with Loz. I would catch him on the hills and then on the flat sections he would pull away. This went on for the first 15km or so. I lost him after one of the creek crossings though. So then I backed off the pace a little as my HR was quite high. The first stage was pretty uneventful. It was impressive seeing the Elite riders tear past though. Fortunately I was in an open paddock so it was no issue for them overtaking me.

I rode straight through into the second stage. Again I just tried to pace myself as I've had issues with cramps in all the other long races I've done in the past. Whenever I felt my legs give any hints of cramps I just stopped and gave them a good stretch before continuing. I caught up with Loz again at the 50km drink station where he was fixing his bling new bike. The front deraileur cable had stretched so he was fixing that. I was starting to get quite tired in the latter parts of the second stage. I walked more hills now. I came into transition with Heckler.

The start of the third stage was easy as it was all downhill! Some sneaky guy sat on my wheel that whole way though. I wasn't feeling very energetic at this stage and Heckler passed my again shortly. You can see my HR dropping a bit too. I smashed down some more sports drink and that seemed to help. Went through the Free Bike Wash and I was like sweet not long now. How wrong I was......going up the Roller Coaster backwards involved a lot of walking. That massive grassy hill also was a walker. As was some of the firetrails.....you get the idea I was totally buggered by the time I got back to the fenceline opposite the Free Bike Wash. Saw some poor guy in the Short but Steep line. He was getting attended to by some medics. Hope he is making a swift recovery. Used whatever energy was left to get back to the finish in 7hrs 38min.

Not a fast time but I was happy to have paced it right to avoid the bad cramps I've had previously.