Karingal 4hr race report
Back date your mind a few weekends for this one.
I late entered the Karingal 4hr held on the 15th November. Big thanks to the BSMC for kindly accepting my entry a day after the second cutoff date.The main purpose of this race was to test out the new saddle (Fizik Gobi) and test out myself on a shorter race format. The plan was pretty simple, go hard & see how long I could hold on for. The solo men got to go first & I was a few rows back from the start when the hooter sounded. The usual mad scramble ensued and even though I thought I was pushing I was getting smashed up the first climb (mental note: do more hill repeats... hard!!). Things settled down once we entered the single track, and at this point I was glad I'd done a pre race sighting lap as there were plenty of places it looked like you could pass but most of them ended in deep ruts or tree stumps. Two laps down & feeling so so I was passing a few of the first lap sprinters, into my third lap just over and hour into the race & whammmo, I was drained. At first I couldn't work it out, then realised that climbing Nebo the day before might not have been the best prep for a smashfest race, plus it was a stinking hot dusty day. After I talked myself out of pulling out of the race I plugged on. I reset my goals after watching a few singlespeed guys fly by, my new aim was to not get out of the front middle ring to test out the concept of running a 1x9 setup on a hilly(ish) course. At one stage I stopped for about 10 minutes to talk to Dan about the previous 24hr race (the one without a race report) and his experiences running it singlespeedly, good fun, I nearly forgot to get back to the race. Not much else happened really after that, so without drawing it out too much, I ended up doing 8 laps and finished 9th in solo men but well outside of the top 10 overall when including the women, 40+ & singlespeeders. A bit blah really, but probably a bit better result than I felt I deserved. Thanks to http://bsmc.asn.au/ for the event, always good to see a well run event. Thanks to Tailwind Promotions for the timing & the Karingal Scouts for the tracks & works vege burger (bread with lettuce & egg).
