Singletrack overdose

I signed up to this race thinking that it will motivate me to train and ride more. Well it did, and I even bought a new Epic 29er for this event.

Everything went well up until 2 weeks before the race, I was down with hand foot and mouth disease which means painful blisters on my feet on hands and worst of all no riding.
Following that, the Monday before the race I woke up with a painful gout on my left knee, so painful that I couldn't walk for 1 day. A lump about the size of a grape was visible on my left knee, things weren't looking good.

Thank God by Friday my left knee was about 90% healed, drove down Saturday and did a quick 10k lap round Kowen and my knee actually felt better after the ride, I was nearly getting the full motion on the left knee and that really boosted my confidence.

Race Day:
Started in Wave 3 and all went well, not being on the bike for 2 weeks and riding on a new bike means that I still have not found my ideal seat height so I had to stop a couple of times until I found the right height for the rest of the race.

The Epic likes to climb and it certainly helped me conserve some energy. The escalator and effing track was tough and nice at the same time, gotta go back and do it again for a training ride one day.

After arriving at the 50K mark I was thinking of pulling out of the race, but whilst filling up my water bottle, an angel in a form of a middle aged man gave me some words of encouragement to have a go and ride the rest of the 40k. So after a toilet break I rode again into the singletrack heaven.

The ride to the next checkpoint was uneventful, saw a family of roo with a joey in the pouch which cheered me up (gotta love riding in Kowen) stomach was feeling empty and so was my energy level.
Some quite challenging up hills at "Trig Track" which means hike with the bike for me

At the next checkpoint on the top of the hill (67k mark), I stopped and refueled with bananas, power bars and water. Felt really good after that and managed to bunch up with a small group of riders that motivates each other to keep on going. Some parts of the track was getting really muddy and rutted out and the rain certainly didn't help.

Towards the end the mind and body was tired and numb, I didn't pay attention at one point and hit a hole so down I went, luckily I was only going slow and only injured my pride.

At the finish line my wife and daughter was there waiting for me who was covered in mud and sweat. Glad to have finished in my not so fit condition.

That brings the end to my 2nd MTB marathon event and definitely not my last

Now I got to work on my brownie points and fitness so I can ride the Fling.