I actually didn’t know what to expect for this race because July is when I started to get back into training after a break from my last race being The Convict 100 in early May. I think the last time I raced a 50km marathon was the last time I did the 3 Ring Circus. This was in 2010 and my time was 3:01:36 so I thought that was a fair enough goal time to beat ;-)
The 3 Ring was my first mtb race back in 2011 when i scraped in under 3hrs after a leisurely blue lap. With that in mind I was determined to be closer to the front this time and straight away that disappeared. (Clearly another one who's too polite to push in).
Unlike all the races leading up to the Convict, I was feeling mentally and physically drained from the last 5 mths of training and racing. So I knew this weekend was going to be hard, but given it is my 'local' event and the last event of this years first half of racing I knew it had to be done. On top of this, our training group had a couple of recent hit outs around the course and even though mentally I wasn't quite there I was still riding physically strong.
For those that don’t know, I raced the Australian Marathon Championships 2 weeks ago in Atherton. I had a week up there prior to just dedicate to riding and relaxing, the race was unbelievably hard taking over 7 hours to finish so I knew I had a pretty good prep coming into this race.
One week prior I did a 95km mtb ride averaging 20km/h which felt good so I just needed to avoid getting sick in the week leading up and I should be good.
Well this journey starts way back in December last year. After some disciplined training and racing in 2012 I wanted to take this a step further. To do this I had a chat to Ant Shippard, outlined what I wanted to achieve, and asked if he was willing to help me get there. My goals were quite ambitious, but Ant agreed to help and said that he would do what he could to put me into a position to achieve these goals, but all the hard work depended on me.
I'll start with wow, what a hard race. Below also includes the week before as we had a few descent rides up there in the week leading to the race.
Originally I wasn't gong to do this and just focus on the XCM series. As the XCM series announcement kept getting delayed I decided I would have a crack at this. I was already signed up for the Wombat but once they announced there was no series Wayne and I decided to pull out of the Wombat and head up a week early.
As the date came closer I was excited about the whole trip, a weeks riding and then the race.
The Capital Punishment is not one of my favourite races. Maybe it was the first years mud fest, or a combination of timed / untimed sections, or the logistical challenges involved with the event.
I had found myself entering this race again this year as it is important race as the first race in the XCM series. But with the XCM series being cancelled / put on hold this year I was lacking motivation for the event. Though after a good result last week at the Willo, I wanted to backup again and get some more race practice before the Marathon Champs next month.
This was my first race where I got to the start and had bike issues. The bike was fine Friday morning but the morning of the race I had no back brake. I tried pumping it but nothing, decided to throw a new set of pads to see if it would help just a little and nothing. Kept pumping the lever and bang, it improved. There must be a bubble somewhere but for the rest of the race it was fine
In memory of one of the great mountain bikers James Williamson the 3rd ‘Willo’ MTB race was held last weekend.
I have always wanted to ride this event, as it is for a great cause and in memory of a great rider, but have never managed to make it due to other commitments bad weather etc.
I've been training pretty hard in the last few months for this and I've actually already doubled my 2011 total kilometres in 2012 so I've really been at it all year.
This was the my last marathon for 2012 so I was keen to finish off strong and I'm pretty happy how it went today.
