BMC 8 Hour

Big Dog pushing out the fastest men's lap for the day
Matt Reynolds paired it up with Gav
Having a great time on the first bridge

Oops...missed the bridge
Feeding up on the fire trail climb
The race was awesome....or should I say 'half the race was awesome'. The weather was great for riders; the course was fun, flowy single track with not too much climbing; and I was feeling strong and fresh. Then I fell off : (

The first 3 hours were great for me - my legs were fresh, and considering the mad 4 weeks prior to the event, I didn't feel the ride until the 3 hour mark. I was riding relatively consistent laps, helped along by some great Sydney friends who were happy for me to sit on their wheel for 3 laps. Thanks Matt & Erica - made the time go by quickly. The course was getting harder to ride as the hours wore on - instead of drying out, damp sections became boggy and spued wet sand out the sides onto the track. What were initially fast sections turned into hard pedalling, and boggy bits grabbed your front wheel without warning.

I had a bit of an 'up close and personal' moment with Evan (check out wide-eyed photo above) - he was set up photographing riders across a bridge. I still don't know what happened, but I ended up riding off the side of the bridge and stopping upright on the bike, two foot from Evan's body. I thought it was hilarious, but Evan wasn't impressed with my riding skills : (

On my 7th lap I was passing someone and fell, landing on my dodgy knee. I panicked, the bottom lip wabbled, and then I looked down to see a suspicious looking lump. I sat on my bike for 10 mins wavering between continuing the ride, or pulling the pin. The pain subsided enough to continue on slowly to finish my lap. Gavin (my brother) caught up to me and sat on my wheel long enough to listen to my woes, and encourage me to get first aid to have a look to see if anything major was wrong with my knee.

As I pulled up to our tent at transition, Evan had already been worded up by Gav. Evan thought I was being a girl about it, until I got off the bike - one glance and he announced that I wasn't going back out on the bike. One positive was that I was able to spend more time with Gav between his laps. Gav & Matt finished 10th in the Men's 3's (their original 3rd rider was seconded to a BMC team), with some pretty hot laps between the two of them. Great work, guys.

So in summary, I was having a fantastic ride - I was coming 2nd behind Katrin Van der Spiegel. I ended up finishing 5th out of 9 - not bad for half a ride I suppose. It's now Monday night and the knee has improved substantially, has a general swelling, and looks like it might just be bruising rather than completely stuffed, which I'm greatly relieved about.