Somedays you eat the bear, somedays the bear eats you.

Coming back for my second 100 Mile fling I was very ready, I had trained much harder than last year and was confident that I would smash my last years time, I had also talked a couple of reasonably fit guys into entering as well.. So with my training and bike fitness looking good I was all set to have some fun racing a couple mates over 100 Miles.

Lining up at the front, us 100Mile crazies get to start up to the front, I really wasn’t all that concerned with the drizzle and the temperature wasn't all that much to worry about either. I have done humid flings with temperatures in the high 30's before and I'm much prefer yesterdays condition to that!

Gun goes off, we start.. My usual races start mid to back pack and so being at the very front this time was an experience for me, I hadn't warmed up so there was a bit of a spike in heart rate and the legs felt heavy chasing some very fast guys, but I managed to keep pace and was generally already overtaking people as my legs warmed up and the cardio settled into bike ride mode.

Then my day starts to go bad, about 30min into it my rear tyre goes flat.. I think no problem I will just squirt some co2 into it and we will be on our way.. Turns out that stans doesn’t seem to seal a good size hole on a cold wet/muddy tyre. So I had started with two canisters and a tube, I was now down now down to one road bike size canister.. So with cold muddy fingers I put in the tube and inflate with the canister, got perhaps 20psi into it, but at least its up and I head off chasing, now caught up in bunches of slower riders and nursing the rear wheel so I don’t pinch flat before I can get to my drop box with my spares at Wingello.

I get to Wingello, with the flat and slower riders to battle (to my detriment I'm much to polite to push through slower riders) I'm down about 15min on my target time, pump up the rear to about 40+ psi (I don’t want to pinch flat again) and I'm off chasing feeling annoyed but good to go.

I'm not exactly sure where, but I do know that theres a lot of traffic that's slowing me down when i hit the single track and I'm starting to get into a mental dark place, getting annoyed and taking chances trying to make up time when I land a bit off line after a rock ramp and the track was veering right, I think my front wheel lands in some soft stuff.. But all I do know for sure is that I go down hard. Get up checking myself, nothing seems too bad and I'm not leaking enough to worry, so I gingerly get back on it.. But now I cant push hard with my right leg? I have a very bad ache in the hip and its extremely sore to touch.

I figure I will keep going, but I cant get any real power down, hills are very painful but spinning up them is manageable and much less painful than walking.

Sometime along the gravel road back into Wingello the rain comes down on me and the headwind steals my mojo.. I make a very hard decision to turn left at Wingello and head back to Bundanoon.

I ride the final section at a painful but social pace, try chatting with a few people, but no one seems to want to chat, generally everyone I come across is not having a fun day?

I roll across the line, they think I'm the 100Mile winner? I wish.. Nope.. Sorry.. I'm the 100Mile DNF.

Later that night at home after scrubbing out black Wingello dirt from the gravel rashes on my leg and elbow and nursing hip that looks like I'm hiding a tennis ball under the skin.. I can't help but feel a little disappointed with the DNF, but in the interests of my general physical cycling health, I think I made the right call out there.