Participation ride?

Hello all again!

Today we went to watch the Elite Men's Road Race of the Australia National Championships. Prior to that, we took part in a ride, had to pay 30bucks and it was not suppose to be a race..BUT...we had number tags and there was a MTB to be won! So whether its a race or not..its up to the participants to decide.

The 'ride' was a 2 hours ride around a 10.2km circuit of the National Championship course. There was a King of Mountain section, about 1 km of climbing and before that, a uphill section of 1.5km. So lots of climbs! It started out with about 50 plus riders, didn't really count, and as the race went along, people started dropping off like bird droppings on the climb especially. I was really struggling at first as my legs felt really tired from yesterday's 5 hours ride and we didn't really warm up properly and it gets really chilly here in the morning. I started cramping up on the 4th lap, then it was like 12 of us left and Adi was also struggling. This was the exact same feeling I felt during National Champs in October last year. I told myself that I must get over this otherwise it will keep coming back and I just pushed on, trying to use more of my hamstring instead of my cramping quads. During the 5th lap, I felt better and it was down to 8 of us, Adi stopped as he cramped up and someone just took off to the front! I wanted to go with him but if I push any harder I'll just cramp up and its all over so I just stuck to a riding rythm till I got better. On the last lap, there were already 2 riders up ahead and I was with 5 others. I felt much better and David was with me as well. I attacked as soon as we got up the crest of the climb as I know I can't out sprint the rest. They caught me really soon as the wind was strong and they were all so big, so while they glide down the descents with the help of gravity, I have to keep meshing on the cranks. Close to 4 km to go, I attacked again, this time on a slight bump but again they caught me. I really ran out of ideas, half of me wanted to wait for the sprint while the other half kept telling me not to. So at 1km to go, I went really hard, just to get swallowed up about 300m from the line and I finished last in the group. Really good experience, but just not enough effort to win the MTB...oh well..

More on the elite race: Travis Meyer won the race with a courageous attack on the hill on the last lap. He was really thrashing himself and fighting to the end with a 21sec gap. What a rider and it was really inspiring to see all the other elite pushing themselves to the limit. Mick rogers was a disappointment, just sat in, waiting for something to happen, oh and did I mention that the winning break went from lap 2 of 16 till the end? Seems like early breakaways are the in-thing now.

Ok I'm tired now and don't feel like writing anymore. Miss eating coconut bun.