16/9 Amy Grand Fondo.
Ended up riding this event, because Ann-Michel wasn't able to so she gave me here ticket. Had ridden this distance since last year so it was always going to be interesting. Went to the event with my brother inlaw Peter who was the only rider there on a mountain bike.
While waiting for the start I ran into Tim & Helen, so I dropped back to start with them. Great day for the ride & we rolled off the start at about 8:14am. Didn't realise at the time, but Tim stayed with us for about 100m Before he first session of Squats on Friday for over a year caught up with him & made him drop off the easy pace. Helen & I cruised down to Skenes Creek & I only went on the front once to close down a 200m gap that appeared in the undulation on the way down. We hit the climb together & Helen told me to carry on as she was going to take the climb easy. I haven't done any long climbing for so long I found that I couldn't hold a steady pace. I need to keep changing the pace buy doing short acceleration to feel comfortable. Ended up making my climb time 2min slower than last year. I saw Neil just after the top of the climb waiting & thought about stopping like last year, but decided I didn't want to get cold, so I pressed on. For most of the rest of the ride I found myself in a bunch working quite well, with a few times on the front Until the last climb from Deans Marsh to the finish. The legs then decided it was time for a vacation & stopped working. So the last 10km was a real struggle just to keep turning the peddles over. Made it to the finish with a time of just under 3:26hrs & rolled down the hill back to the car for a total dist of 121km in 3:44hrs. So officially I was 22min faster than last year, but last year I spent about 35min waiting for others to catch up. It was a great event, that some longer training would have made better.

17/9 Legs aren't the best & the 61min commute didn't seem to lossen them up.