My first MTB enduro so the anxiety about what to expect was very real. Staying in Bowral with a mate and our families, we woke early enough for a good breakfast, a couple of cups of coffee and to get there on time. Lost my mate during a fairly uneventful, but mostly enjoyable, first stage - hard to enjoy the freshly laid singletrack as it seemed a lot of rider out were not expecting it so were very slow. The elites belted through whilst we were in the paddocks so no concerns about holding them up, just sheer amazement at their speed.

My first race blog!

My 2nd attempt at the Half Fling and the first race I had a previous time to try and beat. Successfully took over 30mins from my 2009 time so was very pleased with that (even though I felt the 2010 course was tougher and the heat made things harder).

Overall i was pretty pleased with this effort, paced myself aswell as I could, no cramps and didn't feel i had much left at the end unlike last year. heat and a lack of fitness meant my second half was about 5-10 minutes slower than maybe I could have done, but that always gives me something to come back for next year.

Lana (my partner) and I arrived at bundanoon at around 4ish, registered and went for a wander, really liked the atmosphere, loved checking out the bikes. Bumped into ps and headed down to watch the dash, had a chat with gazza, then headed off for a bite to eat and some late bike tweaking, last minute prepping and then off to bed.

Got to the start late and was pushing my way through when I saw D-on so stayed and talked to him for a while. Had a fairly conservative start and stayed out of the wind as much as possible. Didn't have any real holdups until I got to early bath. Saw D-on climbing out the other side while waiting in the queue and didn't see him again until the finish. Got to transition feeling good, took my full 5 minutes to mix up some more rehydration and got going again.