Gran Fondo

I am utterly smashed. 

  Amy Gillet's Gran Fondo

I drove down to Dean' s Marsh where I was staying with Team Specialized and tried to get the best possible sleep in a top bunk.

We woke up at 4 30 to be ready to drive down to Lorne before the road closed.  It was drizzly when we woke up which made me a little nervous as there had been much mention of dangerous descents in the race briefing the day earlier. 

The course was 110km of racing, followed by an 8km descent back down to Lorne.  Check out the profile of the course in the link above.  That's alot of climbing and a long way for someone who's not spent alot of time on the bike.  The most training I'd done at pace was 40km, the only hill training was the Boulevard and I've never ridden further than 80km in one day.

I knew it was going to hurt.

We lined up at the start with the 3000 other competitors.  This was no fun participation event, there was serious money on offer and qualifying for the World Champs next year was a possibility for the winners.

I've never seen so many expensive bikes in one place.  I had decided to play 'pick the nice bike' but I had to change to 'pick the pile of sh#t'. 

I'd been having a lovely chat to a nice girl at dinner and was a little stunned to discover I'd been chatting to Natalie Bates, she was very generous with her knowledge and very friendly.  She was there as team manager for The Daisy Chains, a really nice group of girls.  They ended up winning the women's team category and were super excited.  They were very kind to give me some good tips about descending as well.

The stage was split into start waves of 200 and Team Specialized were in the third wave.  I knew that I would get spat very early in the piece and I was really worried about getting cleaned up. 

The first two waves took off really quickly even though the first k and a half was under control for safety, we started in no time and I made it to the official start line with the team.  Then I managed to stay with them for about 5kms.  I'd started to far back in bunch and when they ramped it up I had no hope of sticking with them.  I feel a little better as some people have told my that Team Specialized gunned it from the start and overtook alot of the first two waves.

Once I was spat, I knew I was in for a really long day in the saddle, in the wind, by myself.   I tried to merge into some groups but for the GOR sector no one was really too keen.

My back started hurting about 30km in which I can only put down to my lack of hill experience.  I stopped for a toilet break at Skene's creek before the King of the Mountain and saw Fee so stopped for a 10 min chat to her.  She'd missed Steve going past unfortunately.

Skene's Creek was the only KOM and it was 9.5km long.  Check out the profile in the link.  I discovered some happy news.  I can climb!  I was very comfortable the whole way up (well as comfortable you can be with screaming legs and max HR) but I had enough air for Islands in the Stream and a couple of phone calls to Marce.

Adam from Team Specialized had been helping someone else up the climb and kept me company for the last couple of k's.  What a nice guy!  He was actually, the only company I had all day.  He told me to take 3 deep breaths just before the KOM finish and look like it didn't hurt.  Good advice - hope the photo turns out ok.

From there, I experienced my first dangerous descent ever.  I LOVED IT!  I was laughing out loud, and very tempted to shout 'WHEEEEEE' at the top of my lungs but I decided concentrating might be a better option as I wanted to keep all my skin where it belonged. 

The ride into Forrest was a bit of a slog as I'd run out of water and I was thirsty.  At Forrest, the wait for water was 30mins and then I took a toilet break there as well.  70kms done, 50 to go.  Piece of cake right?

The sector between Forrest and Dean's Marsh was hell.  I hated it, strong hot headwind/crosswind made life really difficult. 

I discovered that my legs were useless on the flat, I couldn't turn the pedals over any more.  I was fine on any of undulations but anything flat was hurting like nothing else.  My back was sore, my quads were sore, my right ITB was twanging away and my calves were on the verge of cramping.

I was not a happy camper at all.  I'd been eating really regularly, the banana I'd eaten when I stopped at the top of the KOM was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten, and the fruit cake at Forrest was similarly so.  I can only put my fury down to a hunger flat.  I was so angry with the world, I got off the bike and threw a tantrum at nothing.

It was time to phone a friend.  I ran through the list of people who I knew would get it and decided to call my lovely Fi.  She was brilliant. I was not happy at all and thought everything was stupid. 
She talked some sense into me and I slammed two gels and was good to go.  I realised that I needed a bunch.  I'd done 70-80kms by myself by now and I was exhausted.

I jumped on the back of a bunch going past and found some instant relief.  The effort required seemed to half instantly and I was back to being a happy camper again but hanging out for some more hills.

Unfortunately, my quad cramped like all get out right at that point and I had to stop.  Bye bye bunch, thank you for that 5 minute reprieve.

I was back in the wind by myself.  After what seemed like a couple of hours, I finally made it to the final drink stop at the base of the Dean's Marsh climb.  12km to go.

I rang Fi again who reminded me that we run 12km in an hour all the time. 

Turn right and start climbing.  Hallelujah! said my legs.  We like to climb. 

I found a good gear and started tapping away. Up and up.  Got a few comments of 'how are you doing that?  You look so strong' as I passed people which gave me some confidence.

Up, up, keep going.  No more cramping.  Bizarro world.   I was expecting another KOM so was surprised to see the 1km to finish sign.  In that last km (which was the steepest of the whole day) I passed over 20 people. 

Finally finished - then came 8km of the most fun I have ever had on a bike.  I was by myself, closed road so I could go wherever I liked on the twisty windy downhills.  I had a smile on my face the whole way down and would have turned around at the bottom so I could do the descent again.

I really enjoyed the hamburger, chips, coke and caramel slice I slammed in Lorne while I watched the Daisy Chain girls on the podium.

The scenery was gorgeous all day, such a well organised race.  The volunteers and spectators were fantastic.  It was a tough day out for me.  120km solo is a hard slog for anybody. 

My time was listed as 5 hours 58 minutes which is probably the reason why my bum is so sore.  I think I lost at least 45 minutes between talking to Fee, the Forrest water queue and my phone call to Fi at the side of the road. 

At this stage, I'm not sure I'd do it again.  We'll see how long that lasts for.