Rivette SRAM H12

That was the name of the race that has occupied my mind and body for most of the weekend. On Friday J and I had a good day at home playing, eating and going to the swimming pool. J now asks for the arm bands and enjoys "swimming" on his own. He can in fact sort of point himself in the right direction, kick a bit and make some progress so I am happy that he is making some progress in the water. Friday night I packed a ton of stuff into the car, cleaned and oiled my bike and made a load of food and energy drinks for Saturdays 12 hour race.

I left home shortly after 6 and was at the race site, wheels stuck in some mud shortly after 7, thankfully next to some nice Aussie guys who provided some good humoured companionship during the day.

The race started at 9 under clear blue skies that thankfully stayed the entire day and kept the course dry and ridable the whole day. As planned I started steadily and planned to keep going steadily for the duration of the race. The laps took around 40 minutes and I did the first 3 without much of a stop but after that I decided to top up on drinks and have a bite to eat. Unfortunately I didn't make myself drink enough and by the time we were 3 hours into the race I was very dehydrated, felt sick and was cramping a lot. I must admit that I was considering stopping and going home...

I stopped for an hour or so, ate what I could (a cheese and ham sandwich), drank a lot of water and some energy drink and took it easy for a while. After talking to MK on the phone I decided to have another go and gradually things got better. I was taking it one lap at a time and making sure that I drank 1 or 2 bottles of water between laps and tried to eat something too. I could tell that things were getting better as I started to sweat again and even had to pee a few times! (I am third back in this picture with the pink sleeves, there should be more photos to follow.)

I kept plodding around, occasionally seeing the Aussie guys and having a rest in the pits between laps and was entertained later in the afternoon looking for MK and J who were supposed to turn up at about 6. Finally they were there and it was great to see them. I stopped mid lap to have a hug and hear about J shouting "Daddy" at everyone on a bike before they finally found me (that was a few hundred people!)

I did a couple more laps after they arrived, the rules are that you cannot start another lap after 12 hours are up, I imposed a new limit of 11 hours and stopped at 7 deciding that I couldn't face getting my lights out and I was frankly knackered. I also got really bad crap on my last lap that left me nearly in tears and walking for 100m or so.

After a quick shower in the rowing club we were off home and in bed fairly early although I had trouble sleeping. I ended up 44th out of 67 I think and I guess that is OK for my first attempt at completing an endurance mountain bike event, but I know deep down that I could have done a few more laps - at least one more at the end and some of the rests I had during the day were just laziness when I couldn't quite push myself to get back out on the bike.

Now I have a better idea of what the 24 hour race will really be like in June though and it is a little more frightening as a result...