A Fabtastic Day at the James Williamson Enduro 2011

So the first marathon of the 2011 season, the Friday before the race my apprehension grew as to whether I had done enough training to be competitive and with Capital Punishment literally 6 days away it was going to be a good test to work out where my fitness was.

However before getting into the meat of this blog, I would just like to say what a great Event to remember James Williamson by, it was well put togethor, well run and well organised. I especially loved the fact that if you were a 75k competitor you could have your car backing onto the road on the start/finish straight for easy transitions/bottle swaps etc.

My prep in the run up to this was pretty decent, although the tapering thing went out the window on Saturday morning and losing my light at the bottom of Bobbo and then having to catch the NSCC boys from the bottom of Bobbo to Duffy's Forest. I did a new PB up Bobbo Head as well which you can see here: http://nobmob.com/node/20189

Sunday involved a 5am get up, I was in the car by 5.30am and after driving down in the fog I arrived at Wingello at about 7.20, got registered and got prepared for the race, Race kicked off at 9am and I could of benefitted from getting further up the start, however I had confidence in my ability to get past people on the climbs or fireroad from all the road K's I have been doing. 1st lap was pretty busy, had to slow down on the first part of the singletrack as some people couldnt negotiate it. I saw ps about half way through the first lap on one of the climbs and there was a group of about 5 of us riding togethor for a little bit, I wasnt hitting the single track as well as I could of hoped however that wasnt slowing me down to much.

At the end of the 1st/2nd lap I clocked a 71min lap and I was feeling pretty descent, I had cleared a lot of traffic by this stage and a quick transition made life easy, I took on another bottle and a big gulp of water and got going again, on the approach to the KOM, I saw a KOM jersey, however wasnt a 100% if it was Gary or not, it was only until I spotted the bright white Sidi shoes that I knew I it had to be him, my thought process was, how can I be catching Gary, followed by I must be flying, I passed Gary on the KOM climb, with a few words of encouragement from him that I was indeed flying I pushed on. At this point a group of about 4 of us started doing turns working off the front on the fireroads which really helped and we pretty much stayed togethor during the singletrack, I did manage to pull away during the tight stuff and really felt like I was in my groove, not on the brakes much and railing the corners really well, this pretty much continued during all of the 2nd lap and another consistent lap of 70mins.

As I crossed the line, I knew I was on form, I heard a few names of people that I know are fast and my name was included within it and I wasnt a lap down, by this stage I knew I was going well. Another quick transition, followed by a few salt tablets to try and stave off the cramps, which I knew wouldnt be far away given the effort I had put in, in the first 2 laps. However with the names of a few key people pushing me on to push hard I kept on going.

3rd lap was pretty tough, Cramps kicked in at about 5km mark towards the top of the KOM and I resolved to pushing on in the granny ring to try and pedal through it, the singletrack allowed me to let off the legs a little and I shotgunned my final GU and emptied my protein drink into me knowing that the last 10k's were going to be tough. The cramps subsided for a while and I managed to start making ground of a few people including Sam Moorehouse and passed him on one of the climbs, knowing that Sam isnt as strong as I what I was during the singletrack I knew that if I was going to make it stick I would need to be fast through there and hopefully hold on till the end, however it wasnt to be, I suffered cramps on the last little bit of singletrack and was reduced to utilising the granny ring to get rid of them. Finished with a 79min final lap.

Finished in 3h 41mins and 35secs which I was stoked about, only about a minute behind Steve_01 and Sam a few very quick other boys as well. This sets me up well for a big attempt at a sub 5 hours on the Capital Punishment next week and if I can hold off cramps next week I do indeed think I could well come very close.

Garmin profile below: