A Hard Earned Podium Position

I went in to the race with a lot of trepidation given I knew my training was not up to scratch. I blame my wife, and the 3rd child we had at the end of May Jokes aside, I have been on a restricted leave pass which was meant training was restricted to 2 morning rides during the week and 1 ride on the weekend to be home by 10:30. The problem with this is that with interrupted sleep from the bub, I just could not set my alarm early for longer rides. The boys (Minter and Mike Faretta) had been riding 4 days during the week and Mike rides both days on the weekend, so I was worried about a flogging, but was determined to stay with Mike until I blew up.

I lined up near to the front alongside Sxc Racing boys Dave O’Connell and Gary Davison, a lot of the Manly/Tongers group were there, as well as Mike....target locked and loaded!!

Soon enough we were under way and managed to get away clean, The race began to split on the first main climb and across the meadows and I got into the 2nd bunch of about 10 including Mike and Paris, Mike was dangling off the back a few times and I broke away on a hill, smiling in glee. My smile faded at one of the water crossings when I looked over my shoulder and there was Mike.....how did he get there???

Our group finally split at the 2nd water crossing and about 5-6 of us rode into transition pretty cagily as no-one really wanted to tow the others.

Our group that rode into Wingello together headed off into stage 2 until Mike and I went off the front on an early climb before the singletrack. At this point it felt like a regular training ride, Mike and I chasing Minter and Paris up ahead, we worked well together riding at our own pace, knowing each other’s strengths and enjoying the Wingello trails.

Then it struck!! At 2 hours and 20 minutes into the race, I started to get muscle spasms...Nooooo....I started to have to ease off on the hills to control them and Mike started to pull away. I was gutted!!

The rest of the race was just a matter of controlling my heart rate to control the spasms, but I pushed on as hard as I could. I think that this is where the lack of volume and volume at intensity comes in as my legs never felt tired or sore, but I was getting spasms. I used to get these spasms when I first started racing and was not training much at all, but when Minter and I started training in 2012 for Jober2C (a nine day stage race in South Africa), and my volume increased, the spasms disappeared.

I arrived at transition, and saw Mike just finishing filling up with water, which was a nice surprise as I assumed he must be 10 minutes ahead. That gave me some "fuel" and helped make the spasms worthwhile through the last section. I kept hoping he would blow up and I would catch him, but he was too strong and the new time I saw him was at the finish line where he was waiting for me.

As I cam up the last 50 meters, I saw Minter at the side of the fence shouting encouragement. He had already showered and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. How wrong is that!!

I crossed the line very glad that the race was over.

Minters win in the Masters was a given for me and I never doubted it for a second. He is just in a different league to mere mortals. He not only beat the guy who came 2nd by about 20 minutes, but placed 8th overall including the Elite boys. He was 9 minutes behind Jason English, and a full 3 minutes in FRONT of James Downing. Not bad for a 42 year old with 3 young kids.

When Mike checked the results and told me he had come 2nd and I was 3rd. We were both super-chuffed, and making it better, another mate (Todd Sinclair) who rides with us came 3rd in Masters, so from our little group of riding buddies we had 1st and 3rd in Masters and 2nd and 3rd in Vets.....how cool is that