Two centuries in ten days

Time flies, ha ha. The week after Trailwalker I felt great. I did nothing Sat and Sun, swam Monday, did nothing Tuesday, swam Wed and rode on Thursday. I was feeling so good that when I got an email from the organisers of the Angry Doctor 100k mtb saying there was an entry available (it sold out months ago) I was seriously tempted. It involved a slightly crazy plan of running the Striders 10k at North Head on Saturday morning, then driving 5 hours to Tuross in the afternoon, racing on Sunday, then driving 5 hours back to Sydney on Monday. But I had so much fun last year that I could not resist. And I didn't regret it for a minute. I had a great run in miserable conditions at North Head (just under 43 minutes) and then left the foul weather in Sydney behind and drove to the lovely South Coast.

I started near the back and tried to take it easy. I had a few moments early on of thinking it was going to be too hard to finish, especially after 10k and 20k, when I felt sore and tired and there was still such a long way to go. But I eventually found my groove and started really enjoying myself. I chatted to people whenever I could and enjoyed being in the bush, riding, eating, riding on and on and on.
At 30k there was a tricky narrow bridge which I rode (yay) and then a feed station where I stopped, stuffed my face with fruit bun and sports drink and then stuffed around for ages going to the toilet, due to poor planning and lost my glasses, bugger.

At 50k the course passes back through the start and there was a great atmosphere there, I dumped my extra clothes and food back in the car and got on my way again pretty quickly.

From 60-75k I was feeling pretty ordinary, moving slowly and had to walk a couple of the bigger hills. Then a friend Steve caught up to me and that woke me up. I rode behind him and another guy for a while and remembered that riding fast is MUCH more fun than riding slow and discovered that I had more energy than I thought I did. I stopped at the 80k feed station for just long enough to drink a Red Bull and left Steve behind.

From then on I could smell the finish and worked hard to keep up a decent pace. By this stage I was passing lots of guys that were obviously cramping - able to ride the downhills okay but nothing else. That was where I was last year and it was really nice not to be cramping, I think I managed my hydration better and it was cooler than last year too.
I got to this finish in 7.10 which is undeniably slow. But it was 10 mins faster than last year and considering I have done little riding this year and even less mtb, I was pretty pleased. There were not many women so I also got 2nd place in my age group (embarrassingly 30 mins behind the winner of the category and 90 mins behind the female winner, but hey) so I scored some very nice prizes from Netti too - a waterproof jacket and a new helmet, woo hoo.

I had sore and very tight shoulders for a few days but my legs were okay and I got back on the road bike out at Homebush on Tuesday with no problems. It was a great kick start and confidence booster for my mtb training for the Scott 24hr and the Triple Tri.