67 Kilometers is a very long way

Today I finished the Dirt Works 100k, They had 2 main events the 100k, and the "half", but the half ended up being 65 km...but more on that later.

The race was in St. Albmans, which is like 95 km north west of sydney, on the Hawkesbury river, a very nice area.

I got roped into to this event, by my teammates on Team TRuDGe (my working week mtn bike race series team)

aside: I'm exhausted so this will not be very well written, as I just want to put something down and go to bed. I also expect it to very random and jump all over the place.

It was a very challenging event, I rode with my teammates from TRuDGe, and we basically had a riding time of 4 hours 50 minutes, but our elapsed time was a shade over 6 hours. Which I am very happy wiht. I'm actually just very happy that I finsihed, it is a long freaking way. I'm certainly haven't been training for endurance events, so this was tough.

The "half" course was basically 2 laps, one 27km long and second loop 29km long, but the second loop puts out on a road like 9 km from the finish line so you have to ride back into to town.

The first 27 km weren't so bad, I think that is about my comfortable limit. I fully discovered the true power of GU today, I'm pretty sure that is the only reason I finished the last 40km.

There was WAY to much walking for my particular liking. I'd say our of the roughly 5 hours of cycling time, 2 hours was pushing my bike up hill too steep (and long) for my to ride, or walking down really sketchy downhill bits. On my second ride, I was really sick and tired of pushing my freaking bike.

The last 5km were by far the most uncomfortable, and it was basically just riding on the side of a paved road, but by that time, my butt and other under bits were getting sore/numb, my feet were starting to go numb, my legs were tired, and I was pretty much ready to be done, especially since the road was not interesting to ride along.

The reason I rode 67, is that David (a guy on my TRuDGe Team) basically made a wrong turn and had to back track, so we did an extra 2km.

I also wish they would not call it the "half' since it is really 2/3!~!!!

All in all, it was fun, probably equivalent to a 1/2 - 3/4 marathon, but I'm pretty happy with myself that I finished it, especially since I've been mountain biking less than 1 year.

on that note, I think I'll head to my couch to lie down for awhile...