More NoBby than the rest?

Getting up at 5am is always hard, but a nice race day makes it worthwhile.

The track this year had a small change from last, with a nice section of technical climbing added that I'm happy to say I cleaned on every lap. Later on though didn't quiet have the strength left to clear the original section later in the course and had to dab on the last two laps. Still - I didn't get up that once last year due to being forced onto the right line so happy with how this went.

Being paired with Don and Michael thought I'd have to try a bit hard for the day and that turned out to be right. Although Michael completely outclassed the old blokes with his times and annoyingly fresh look after each lap Don and I seemed to be pretty evenly matched so was quiet happy.

Perhaps I was trying a little too hard to begin though as I managed to have a nasty spill on lap one. I'd almost caught Vanina in a section of sniggle and didn't want to pressure her in the next so thought it best to blast by on a nice section of slightly DH firetrail. As this was lap one for me though was unaware of the tight, marble covered left hander at the bottom of there and ended up sliding on my ass and left elbow a little. This added to some damage I'd done to the left arm at Manly the day before so was slightly annoying.

Perhaps I'd damaged something on the bike either there or on lap two because the rear gears didn't feel so good on lap three and I managed to break a chain which took a few mins to sort. I then lost the chain from the front end on lap four. This is most unusual for the Rush so a little TLC is required to find the issue.

Anyhow, these mishaps aside my lap times were 36:27 (plus 27s for crash), 36:15, 36:33 (plus 4:41 for chain), 37:11 and 42:14.

We were pretty hit and miss about getting a fifth lap in so I flogged myself sadistically on lap four. This explains the complete slowdown on the final lap where I was totally cruising and enjoying the course a lot. That in itself is interesting... 5 minutes a lap is the difference between a pace you could ride all day (average HR 148) and a sprint (rest of the laps 165+).

Only ate a single banana and Wallaby bar all day (after toast + jam + banana for breakie) plus 2 scoops Endura and 5-ish Perpetuem to keep me going at the race, as think I've decided it's pointless trying to eat real food at these events.

Laps from MB just for fun:

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7752312

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7752313

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7752314

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7752315

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7752316