Fun Weekend in Canberra

It was freezing at the start. I accidently found myself on front row of the 2nd wave which didn’t last long… At 4km in I saw @doc with an SXC mate on the inside of an uphill corner looking all grazed and holding himself like he had a busted collar bone. I hope I’m wrong Dave! I stopped almost 1km later and relayed what I saw to a marshall.

I loved the single track through Kowen but I had a really challenging time through Sparrow as I sat behind a guy who was really slow in the single track but as soon as we hit any non technical parts he had much better legs so would blast away from me so I was captive for half an hour. I kept thinking of calling but there was nowhere to pass so I just sat on him in hope there would be a passing spot… Finally on an uphill I saw I had about 50m before we went into single track again and gave it everything to get past him. He did the same and I thought “god mate, you know you’ve held me up for half an hour, why the f$%k don’t you just let me go?”. Anyway, I got away and everything was going well until most of the way through the military area when I flatted.

I’m about the slowest tube fixer I know so I just sat on the ground, accepted I’d be there for a while, and went about my task. Finally I arrived at the untimed section only to find my kids were fighting and screaming so realized I was going to owe my wife one big time… I spent ages at the car as I had additional problems such as air leaking from my fork, which was serviced last week.

Once I hit the final section I smashed it. I think I did my fastest climb up Stromlo ever which says I had too much left in the tank but it was a fun way to finish the race. I did take a tumble going down The Luge trying to let someone past but got to the finish happy that I felt I had performed well considering my time on my bum fixing a flat.

We had a great weekend away as a family and I think my 7yo son beat me 14-13 at noughts and crosses in the restaurant over breaky, which topped off my life problems…

Shame this was the last Capital Punishment. It’s one of those events that becomes a whole weekend away.