Adventure Race race (KillaAvon) 5:19:32 [4] 73.38 km (4:21 / km)
ahr:160 max:190
Thought I might have a chance of a respectable result without the 6hr warm up (Rogaine) the day before. So went out pretty hard to try to stay in contact with some of the faster guys.
Andre tried to lead us all astray by not going up past track upto TA1, so as he led a pack off in the wrong direction I went with some others who seemed to think it was probably the right one, was very happy after climbing the hill to find it was the right one.
Caught ShotRat early in the orienteering after he got past whilst I was changing shoes. Stuck close behind the pied piper of Peterdine most of the rest of the way round, but started to run out of puff on the way to 8 and dropped off, leaving Robbie to chase him alone and leaving me to veer left on the way to 11 after passing Woop Woop and Ameko's team, letting them get in front again.
Came out of TA between Woop Woop and Ameko and BIGPete. Great downhill run back down to the road, my first run on the new bike. Caught Woop Woop on the track along the road and sat in behind them figuring once we got onto the bitumen I'd be able to work with them through to Muresk. We were catching ShotRat and I thought he could join the train as well, but he took a dud fork and we passed him by. Hard ride on the road, had a couple of goes on the front, Jake did most of the work, after my first go on the front I nearly dropped off as Jake came by and working really hard to hold on for quite a while until the pace eased a bit.
Got the Muresk and did all the controls, probably should have seen if some of them were worth dropping, but didn't have the descriptions out and I hadn't bothered working out which one were only worth 1 minute before the start.
Then I made the big mistake of doing the double G controls. Chased Robbie up the hill hadn't caught him at the top and then he took off down the hill opening a huge gap. Another super fun downhill run, tried to stick to the vehicle track through the paddock figuring surely the vehicles would have picked up all the double G's. Caught Robbie down at the watercourse as he was looking for the control, I spotted it and rode over to it as he went past, but I think I may have yelled out to him. After X20 Robbie stayed high on the contour whilst I cut through diagonally to the road. Was catching Robbie an a bunch of others when I stopped to refold my map, but when I pushed off again the front tyre was flat. Nearly everyone passed me by whilst I picked out double G's and eventually got the new tube in and got going, soon after the back tyre also went, so everyone else passed me by as I sorted out that one. Then stuffed around heaps looking for 22.
Eventually got to Northam already running pretty late but went for all the controls anyway, thought I saw Andre heading my way as I turned towards I, but didn't see him for a while so thought I must have been imaging it. Stuffed around heaps trying to find the lookout at A and was a bit disappointed at the finish to find that I'd missed seeing J on the map.
Andre came into the transition back to the bikes just as I did and proceeded to writhe around on the ground with agonising cramps. Left transition before Andre, but he somehow recovered and caught me up on the way out of town and so started our cat and mouse game for the rest of the race. Since Andre thought it was a good idea to get the climb the hill to the extra control X24 off we went, and it was a killer and so was the hill to 25. We faffed around with someone else at 26 as we'd somehow approached the water tower from the wrong side. Then Andre tried to lead me astray by stopping at the wrong bridge (like everyone else apparently), I slowed for a quick look and suggested it was the wrong bridge. He caught me again when we got to the right bridge and I lead for a while towards the finish. Feeling that if I led too long Andre would be able to get me in a sprint, I let him led the rest of the way, he tried to get away heading in to the finish and I struggled to stay on, so I thought I'd let him have it, but when the finish was a bit further in than I'd expected and Andre seemed to pause for a cramp, I decided it was game on again and squeezed into the finish in front.
Thanks for a great race to the end Andre, I don't know how you recovered from Northam to be able to still try to shake me at the end.
Thanks to Tooms, Dalto and the rest of the crew for another great race, and once again showing us the silly things we'll do in the name of racing, despite being fully warned that it would probably be a bad idea (the double G's that is).