A glimpse of heaven (or hell?)

Interesting race this one, but have to say am very happy with how it went to be honest. Well - for me - for poor old Cupcake it sucked quiet badly.

Having hastily moved from a trio with Junkie, Cupcake and I begrudgingly formed a pairs team at Lisdale. It would seem no-one wanted to ride with a 'pest' and both of us were too soft to ride alone so worked for me.

Or rather - it would have worked aside from Cupcake stepped on some barbed wire before the race even started and in some freak occurrence was stabbed right in the Achilles tendon - ouch! Still, he seemed to be walking OK-ish as I set off to the start line for lap one so thought no more of it.

It was a hot day and conservation was my goal so tried to stay mid pack in the 'sprint' to the first corner and was pleasantly surprised to find the traffic flowed pretty well right from the get go. Cruised for a while before passing a couple of folk and catching up with Gazza and V. Sat behind them for a while before deciding staying with soloists was being too conservative and went off. The track was really rather good, but dusty as hell. Was heckled by some chick just as we got to the top of the fun bit (everyone knows what I'm talking about here) so lost the cheeky young scamp down there easily. Wheeeeeeeee

Then something went wrong. Having passed over to Cupcake he didn't come to transition in time. Thought I must have missed him. Then thought his silly exception tires or condom tubes had failed. Then he showed up complaining of ankle pain. Oh dear... so set of in 'super slow' mode figuring if he was badly hurt I'd have to ride all day. Two more laps didn't seem so bad and when I came past camp NoBMoB after that Cuppa's was on his bike and wanting to go. Cool... saved.

Ate some (salted chips, banana, Wallaby bars, bottle of Pepetuem) and chilled for a while. Cupcake came back after an hour this time and didn't look good. Hobbled off his bike and sat down. Oh well - he's ridden for almost 2 hours, surely I could finish up, eh? Wrong!

Another lap wasn't so bad, but then began to get a glimpse into the satanic world of a soloist, and I didn't like what I saw. It's not that things were that bad... but when you set of at a pace you think is so slow you must to be able to carry on like this all day, and after a while realise that's not going to be possible, how do you lot cope? Everyone was complaining about their feet. Apparently the heat (I read on MTB-OZ someone measured 41C on the course) makes feet swell but if you loosen your shoes (which does help a bit) things don't feel right either. At least feeling returned in my feet when I did that, just a nasty feeling of pain!

Luckily for Cupcake and I this wasn't very serious at all and figured after this next stint that'd be five laps - I'd stop and chill out for a couple hours, maybe cruise one more lap and be done.

But when I stopped, stupid hobbling boy went out again. I went to take some pictures and chat to people. Felt kindof stuffed and was looking a bit sweaty:

Talking to folk along transition row, the consensus was five laps was a good go and decided that would do. Go back to camp and tell Cupcake we can go home. Only he wasn't at camp upon return. I'd taken a picture of him close to the end of his lap so this meant he'd done a double. Doh!

Slow as he was (what with only having one good leg!), Cupcake somehow managed to make it back to transition with 5-ish minutes of the race left. He hobbles over to the esky like a bad actor playing Long John Silver and mumbles about another lap. I've done a couple of WWS races with Cupcake and should have realised that if there was time he was going to insist someone do another lap. What can I say... felt sorry for the silly bugger so put my shoes back on, grabbed a bottle, donned the Camelbak and rode off. Only to discover the Camelbak bladder is empty. Doh!

Still - it's quiet cool by now (all of 33C) and a bit cloudy. Made for better visibility in the trees - and that fun section was even better for the last time. Wheeeeeeeeee

My official lap times ('cos the Garmin was not liking the heat either) were: 43:49, 46:10, 49:30, 47:56, 50:58, 50:45. Happy with that consistency.

First lap is here... at least it shows the whole course:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view....