BMC 100

16/4 Easy 70min ride

Easy turn-up session tonight
Deck Squats 2 x 20
Agility band Sprints 3 x 10 (Didn't go full out, unlike Neil who is now aiming to reach the road)
Indo Board switch lunges 3 x 5es
Indo board 1A swings 3 x 10es
Indo Board Figure 8's 3 x 10ew
BW Explosive jump squats 3 x 15

18/4 Got my MT bike back from John & had to fix the set-up for tomorrows race & went out for a 25min ride with 3 x 2min at race pace just to open everything up.

19/4 Up early 4am for the 7am start at Woodend. Got there with plenty of time, all organised and ready to go only to have the start delayed by 30min, because of all the late arrivals & the traffic jam getting into the parking area. The sart was interesting with the guy on the grid next to me going down within 5m taking out about 20 other riders, so now there was a split & the chasing began. Legs just felt OK & not great so I just got into a rhythm & down to business. Matt who raced the Kona24hr with me caught up to me at the 1:15hr mark so we started riding together. We managed to take a wrong turn as a left pointing arrow meant left of the tree not the hard left that we took & that was the start of a few things going wrong. The wrong turn looped us around & back onto the track with about a 5min loss of time, about 5min later at the bottom of a fast descent I managed a rear wheel puncture. Quick fix & I was off only to flat again on the rear around 5min later. Lucky I always carry 2 spares but the mental blow is hard & I took ages to get the mind back on the job. At about 2:30hrs the legs started to feel good & I picked up the pace & was going well with a small bit of lower back pain. This was how it went Until the 4hr mark & then the back pain started to get bad. During the rest of the ride I just kept getting slower, having to stretch out the back as much as possible & stand on the climbs & grind. Ended up doing 5:56hrs which I'm happy with but was aiming for sub 5:30hr. When I got home I checked out my set-up again & realised that the nose off my saddle was about 1.5% too high so adjusted that & hopped on the bike & felt fine. Shouldn't have rushed the bike set-up & would have been at least 20min faster. Out of the others who raced from training Justin came 2nd in the Single speed class, Neil came 4th in the Open class & managed to ride off a 2m high bridge, Alex hand mechanical problems & didn't finish & Jim, well Neil said it best is soft.