I finished the 62km marathon stage a few hours ago and now I'm writing this from my blissfully air conditioned hotel room and still have mixed feelings about my result.
I came 29th today.
It's not a particularly low number but the field was large and pretty bloody strong. I think I should describe my performance today with another placing.
I was the 5th male elite Aussie today.
That's not so bad!
It wasn't the longest of marathons and over the 62km only had 900m of climbing but I still found it as tough as any that I've done. I think it was the heat and the humidity that made it so tough. An average temp. of 30deg is not cool.
I actually had a really good race. Mine certainly started better than the blokes that KO'd themselves (or possibly worse!) by running into a terribly placed steel road barrier no more than 3km from the start. I think it will be a very short tour for them. These guys were probably 30 wheels back from me and the thud of body on steel and scraping of pedals on tarmac certainly turned my stomach.
We rode through jungle complete with monitor lizzards, monkeys and water buffalo. Through rubber plantations careful to avoid hitting the small black pots nailed to the trees full of the sticky white sap of the rubber plant. And through villages, back yards, weirs, creeks and extremely suspect quagmires...
My infallible support crew scootered to all three feed zones which was a lifesaver as some people missed out on even a bottle of water at some feed zones. My sister said she felt sick for the unfortunate people who had no one helping them (for the record, my Sis and Dad were also helping a couple of other riders too).
I'll spare you a blow-by-blow of the race if you're interested in the finer details you can check out my Garmin heart rate and GPS data here.
Not a single mechanical or crash which makes me love my Vertex even more (probably should go and show it some of this said love) and I'm sooooo glad I had this bike to bring over. A hardtail was DEFINITELY the right choice of bike and am, as always, very thankful of the iRide/Rocky Mountain guys.
I'll post a link to the results as soon as they're online.
Link to my Garmin data HERE.
And some pics from today:
Dad, 50% of the best support team at the race
My Sis, the other 50% of the best support team at the race
Contemplation on the start line with Morgan Pilley (already drenched with sweat)
My Rig ready to roll in the bike basement
The Bike Basement - someone could do seriously well to roll this joint!
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