Training Log Archive: O-ing

Jenolan East. This one was a bit disappointing. The order was the same as yesterday with pretty much the same time differences: Roberts, Nott, King, Rothery, MacDonald, except that Rob Prentice turned up today for the win. It kind of demonstrates that this was more about riding fitness than navigation: but only on this course. The longer courses had a lot more route choice and were better.
I rode OK and for the second day in a row didn't fall off. However the hills sorted me out - Melanie, Prentice and even M60 Joe Sherriff rode away from me pretty easily on some of the long climbs, plus Marina flashed past on a flat part of the course. Prentice did a 5km run to warm up! Then he saw me in my Ireland gear, so he got out his Scotland top. He passed me 8-9, so I drafted him for about a kilometre, giving him words of encouragement, which I'm sure he appreciated.
Its not that long ago that I was able to drop tRicky after 90km of the Great Perth Bike Ride - now he is winning Course 1 by a huge margin and I'm midfield on Course 3. Well I guess that's what happens when you drop from 7,000km a year to 1,000+.

Event: (MTBO NOL) Round 4, NSW Champs
 

Black Springs. Pretty easy area/course, but still managed to choose 4 less than optimal route choices, including one climbing 20m to a main road and avoiding an obstacled track. Well behind winner Malcolm Roberts who edged out Simon Nott on 64 minutes.

Burnt Bridge Creek, Manly Dam. =11th, a good result although could have been better if I hadn't switched off at #19 and lost 1:20, or got stuck in bush unnecessarily a few times (#23 -20 secs, #25 - 20secs, to #26 -30secs and around #28 -40secs). Total time loss ~ 3:10, so probably should have scored 520 which would have been a clear 3rd place behind Andy Hill 540 and Mark Schaefer 530.
At #16 an Australian Southern Bush Rat ran over my foot after I disturbed it by climbing up the rock it was sitting on behind the control.
Distance a guess after GPS ran out of batteries. Couldn't see the elapsed time because of the "Low Battery" dialog - nice design Garmin! However, was pretty committed to the route which seemed to be get all the 20s and 30s and leave out all the 10s - not much to shortcut. So was 4 minutes late.
After taping my right knee as a precaution it was the left knee that was sore after.
Route Gadget link: http://routegadget.itsdamp.com/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi?...

R knee a bit sore