JP Morgan 8 1/4 Hours of Power - 3rd Solo Women

The face says it all at the end of the race...

This event was held at Ourimbah State Forest, near the coastal town of Wyong. My practice lap was totally awesome - it was really difficult to not go hard on the hard-packed, flowing track. It had sections of trail that were reminiscent of many trails in NSW and Victoria - Killingworth, Yellowmundi, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Whittlesea, Mt Beauty.... But, even with this world of awesome trails, I had an angry race, which was unfortunately not to my benefit.

I was fatiguing on the climbs by the third lap, I was fed up with people, and then it rained. By 5 hours in I was contemplating pulling out. 6 hours in I found out I was coming 3rd. With only 3 more laps to finish, it was too late to pull out. So I got some food in and plodded through the first of three at a very slow pace. With only 2 laps to go I pulled my finger out and did a hot lap, followed by another.

I finished in 3rd, and walked away having learnt alot. I also learnt that a 5 1/2 hour drive straight after the race is crap!!

The end of a week

I've had a mixed week - time off work, time on the bike, and some beach relaxing too. Evan needed some bodies on bikes for a few photos, so Evan, Brad & myself headed out for a mtb ride. Evan's comment was 'challenging hills' - my experience involved biting the head stem for way too long, then walking the remainder. The first hill ascended 170m, followed by...well, more hills. But the photos were worth it, apparently!!

Sunday gave us a local race at the 'Cows with Guns' course - this time with a few extra kms of new track. Rain last night meant that the new sections made for hard riding, and the old sections were as trecherous as always in the wet with dozens of tree roots.

My aim was to stay upright so that I am fully functioning for next weeks 8 hour at Ourimbah. After a full week on the bike my legs were tired, so all I had to do was go out and ride, spend some quality time on Dale, and work on consistency in my laps. All of this was followed by several hours of pancakes with some very good friends.

Road Training

The last month on the bike have been up and down, in more than one way. I've been fitting in a good week on the bike, then the next is a week of interrupted training (but I guess that's life). And as the pictures portray, I've been up and down with the local Coffs terrain. These pictures are from Ulong climb - a non-stop 10km climb that takes about 45min. But what a beautiful environment.

I've been a bit put off one section of road since a nasty incident with a 4wd - he nearly hit Evan & myself on a 100km/h stretch of road. What's really funny is the freakin' idiot was stupid enough to park his 4wd outside the Coramba Pub 10km down the road!! We livened up the normally sleepy pub whilst trying to get someone to own up to driving the 4wd...