Friday, October 5, 2012

News Shorts

No, not NEW SHORTS.... NEWS SHORTS! Although I did get some new shorts for the epic ;)

I've been on holidays the past 2 weeks so plenty of time for riding and looking at blogs. Thought it best I update my own with a bunch of short and sweet bits and pieces from the last month or so.

Flight Centre Epic

Race crept up very quickly, and since Lauren and I were staying at the resort the night before we were both pretty excited and I almost forgot it was a bike race. With a terrible lead up to the event health wise I was almost considering pulling out only days before. After some 'encouragement' from some of the Wednesday morning boys I thought best I should start the race with the idea of pulling out at the 50km mark if things went sour.

I didn't hammer the first 50 but instead just rolled at a basic pace. I let people go past and I trundled up hills in granny gear knowing what the last 37km would involve. Got to the 50km checkpoint and actually felt really good, I had probably been conserving too much energy at this point. I heard Neil was only 4mins in front and my other mate woody only 15mins..... I had also seen Dr Geoff go past at on one of the hills so I sped myself up a little.

When I got to about the 65km mark I had overtaken a TON of people on the single track climbs. I then copped massive upper leg cramps in all the usual spots. This was pretty much the rest of the race, nursing myself around the hills and rolling down the other side. Finished race in 6h20m which was ok all things considered.

After looking at the 50km times, my 50 time was only 10 mins off a place in my age group if I had entered the half epic. I think next year I will sign up for the 50 and try and smash it big time!!

Speaking of smashing the 50... Riding buddy and friend Trickle was planning to place quite high in the half epic. At around the 30km mark he was eaten up and spat out by one of the knarly decents quite literally knocking himself out cold. He awoke to a cracked helmet and lots of grazes but continued on to finish 5th overall even stopping for around 10 mins concussed after the crash. Well done to him!!!! My other mate John also came 6th position overall. I ended up around 20th in my age group.

Holidays!

Lauren and I have started booking places for our holiday next year. I have taken almost 6 months off work and plan to travel to Canada, UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Greece, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria and fly back via thailand or somewhere similar.

So far I have about 2-3weeks to ride my bike in Canada, I have about a week set aside to ride France, and about 3 days or so in Italy. My plans for Canada will be to hook up with a mate over there living in Vancouver and ride most of the coast up to Whistler, in France I will base myself out of our campervan so anything is possible, and I have gotten myself 3 days in the Dolomites in Italy just before the shuttles etc close for the winter.... woohoo!!!!!!


Dolomites in Italy
 Racing and Training

I've almost 'stopped' riding quick at the moment and am literally plodding along whenever I ride. The second 6hr was cancelled (pathetic!) so I have lost all momentum. I am realistically planning to enter some races in early 2013 which should mean a big of a break before I start up some base training miles again.

Earlier this year I got some coaching advice re: Arobic endurance riding and had the best start to a year EVER. Next year I need to repeat this process but STICK TO A PLAN AFTERWOODS. My problem this year was doing some excellent endurance riding but then losing all that work by taking huge chunks of time off from riding. I will hopefully have a much easier study load next semester so fingers crossed!

I have been following Jason English on Strava lately and MAN that dude pumps out some k's!!!! So anyone wondering how many hours you should be riding per week win 24hr races..... around 29h a week with an average of 150km per ride!!!!!

Jason is on school holidays at the moment by the look of things, and has been attacking a random 25km hill out the back of his house each day, then tacking on an extra 180km afterwoods. Respect!








Lastly

Woolworths stock Banana, Banana and walnut, and fruit bread in PRE PACKAGED little baggies!!! They are so awesome. I have been living on these the last few weeks! Enjoy!




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