December 1, 2009 • 12:09 pm 0
Signed up for Dirtworks this morning. Another 100km race… though this one is meant to be at the other end of the scale (ie. easier) to the Angry Doctor. The pain and weariness of riding 100km off road only seems to breed an appetite for more.
Filed under: Bike , Cross country, Dirtworks 100km, Endurance racing, mountain biking
September 28, 2009 • 11:22 am 0
Filed under: Bike , Cadel Evans, cycling, road cycling
September 16, 2009 • 2:17 pm 0
The Angry Doctor results are in. It was one long, hot ride. The 100km took me 8 hours, 34 minutes. This includes about 40 minutes of stop time at various rest points… and a lot of walking up hills from the 70km mark onwards. So, perhaps a little more training was required!
For the first three quarters of the race, I kind of had a running commentary going, thinking to myself about the experience of riding so long, and what was good about it. But the last 20kms or so are a bit of a blank. I know the last 20kms took me about 1:45… in my memory I can recall about 5 minutes of it. I was a little tired by then.
For purposes of comparison, the winners did it in about 4:40. My bro-in-law, who had a couple of 100km races under his belt already, did it in just over 7 hours, putting him in the top half of the field. I was in the last quarter.
And yet… it was hard, gruelling, strenuous, and I cramped muscles in places I didn’t know that I could cramp, (the middle of your back, anybody?), but it was still fun, in some strange sense of the word.
What wasn’t fun was running over a couple of snakes. The first was, I think, a Death Adder, that just kind of shrugged and went ‘hmpph!’, but the second was a big, dark, long thing, that reared up off the trail… but I was flying downhill and was gone. Scared the life out of me.
Sadly – you might have seen it in the news – one of the guys competing in the 50km collapsed and died during the event. He was a fit guy, and was riding with his son.
Vital stats:
50km split: 3:37
Total for 100km: 8:34 (although this includes the 25mins I took for lunch and mechanical stuff at the 50km stop)
An average speed of just under 12km/h. Something to improve on!
Filed under: Bike, experiences, madness , 100km Mountain Bike race, Angry Doctor, mountain biking
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