It was the endurance day. Endurance riding really isn't my thing, and I had been pooping like a madwoman in the first few days of the race. not sure if it was nerves or what, but the tank was well and truly empty that day and I was running on gels and whatever I managed to keep in for breakfast that morning.
We set off, I was wanting to start at a conservative pace to last the distance. The longest ride in the leadup to this race was 5 hours, and that was the ONLY long ride I had donee! I rode with Jo up the start climb, and at the crest Jessis on the right of me powering up. I can't get behind her due to a giant rut so when she gains some places I am stuck well behind. She was obviously going nuts up those climbs, and I wasn't sure it was a sustainable pace, so I let her go in order to look after myself and finish my own race!
A nasty crash in the first 10km saw me ripped up, and I struggled on feeling less than good. The 25km feed zone saw the start of the bikepath and bitumen leg. Jo Wall, current australian 24-hr solo champion, was having a great ride and was smashing this section. My legs felt like empty sausages as I watched her ride into the distance. And then there was one!
A few guys, strong on the road, scooped me up in their echelon, and I rode 35km of the stage still hurting like a mofo, despite being tucked in away from the wind. The last section I rode a whole bunch on the front--it was rocky, rought as guts and sandy with giant chasm-like holes in the road. I was pretty sure we were near the end so I put the hurt on when we picked up Jo again.
Alas, I should have been a bit smarter as we promtly turned left up a large shaly climb, which was followed by numerous baby-head boulder decents and loose climbs. I was going ok until I lost it on a descent and was shuffling my way down and Jo the invincible passed me again.
I just had to make it to the BMX track! Only a few km's to go and it was sand sand and more sand. We popped out from a fireroad at a bitumen road t-intersection. There were no markings! I turned to the guy behind me: he had no idea where to go? We were trying to think quick and suddenly there were five of us deciding how to get to the BMX track. I even asked a bloke in a ute. He looked unimpressed with my lycra attire, and didn't know.
A couple of valuable minutes later wedecided to head down the road and pinned the last couple of kms into the track. Thank god that was over! I had a lot of skin missing, very very sore lady bits and was generally disenchanted. I lost a valuable ten minutes to Jess in one 80km stage, which was really diappointing as there would be no yellow jersey for me the next day.
But ce la vie, that was racing, and we went home to demolish a pile of food...
 |
| Aidooz Lefmann, husband and support crew, oh and currently running second in the hotly contested men's field. Thanks for pimping my tyre pressure of a morning and innovatively finding a way to put my Garmin on my bike without it's mount, and putting up with me in general (the tears were from exhaustion, I promise!) <3 |