Mudgee 90km Mark Dwyer Handicap Midday Saturday 11th July 2010
Drove down Mudgee in the morning and decided it was warm enough so I donned my skin suit and had a short warmup before hitting the road in the 27 mins (Limit + 10:00 mins) group, third group to hit the road.
First 25 or so K's
Pace started out pretty slow and then steadily picked up. The paceline was working well and then we hit a hill and it broke up. About 10 went off the front with me but I was spat towards the top of the hill and rolled on solo for a little before being picked up by another rider then 3 more. We formed a paceline and worked well together, picking up more and more dropped riders. The new paceline was working really well, for a while I was thinking we could pick up the 10 riders that had gone off.
23 mins (Limit + 14:00 mins) bunch
Then we were caught by the bunch behind, we sped up and almost all of us got on. This bunch wasn't rolling, so I took the opportunity to sit in. Eventually a paceline formed at the front and I joined in. The bunch was quite large and it was spitting the odd rider here and there, about the same as it was gathering.
The home run begins
Not far from the turn to head towards home, the bunch is stretched into single file, I'm quite a way back and the alarm bells sound, I pull out and throw on some effort, launching myself to about 10th. Feeling safe again I join the restarted paceline. Then all of sudden we take a corner and the bunch blows apart. I was in the middle of taking an energy gel and I cease, holding the gel in one hand while and put in all stops to stay on, but after about a k, I'm spat.
19 mins (Limit + 18:00 mins) & 15:30 mins (Limit + 21:30 mins)
After a couple of solo k's along comes the remnants of the next 2 bunches combined. I jump on but only last a K, the pace isn't that bad, I'm just spent. A couple of other riders from the same bunch are also spat at the same time, so perhaps the pace was a little hotter than I'm giving credit for.
Time for some fun
Cruising back to the finish line, I come upon a limit rider who's trying to do his PB, so I give him a bit of a tow for a while, keeping an eye on him not to drop him. Then Scratch come past on an uphill and they are moving, there is no chance of me getting on, I'd need to have been caught on a downhill to have got on. So back to helping mr limit with his PB. We pick up some more riders including some spat scratch riders and cruise in like a Sunday ride heading for the coffee shop. One of the riders is happy with doing the 90k in 2h5m, which I think equates to me doing the 90k in something like 2h30m.
Post Morton
Not my best performance but as bad as it is, it was better than last year. About 36kph average, well down on my 39.5kph average at Ken Dinnerval. True I've lost some fitness since the Ken Dinnerval, but the reality is that I'm not going to be consistent on the road without some real road K's in my legs. Just as important, I need to get better at climbing hills, I'm fine at doing 1 or 2 as I can use my strength to get over them, but I need more hill climbing consistency to deal with the open road.