On Sunday morning we woke up to what seemed to be a clear sky. We honestly thought the weather man had got it wrong, but the weather soon turned REALLY cold. We arrived at the venue and were told that heavy rain had come through there during the night. Luckily, the soil in the area was really coarse, so it would only be muddy in a couple areas and we would not have the dust of the previous week to contend with.
We headed up to get registration done, and man were we lucky to be there early! We were one of the very first to get registered and it soon became really crowded with some 800 competitors. It was so bad that our race was delayed by nearly an hour. This delay had most of us a bit worried as we had all eaten our breakfast in anticipation of a prompt start and we were concerned whether our reserves would go the distance with us expected to finish an hour later than planned. Our fears were compounded by the fact that if the previous years route was anything to go by, we were in for a hard day of racing.
We were eventually off at 09:55 after numerous warmup's and toilet dashes while waiting for the people to enter and as usual, Jedson Tooms attacked straight out the blocks and went all out for the first km or so. But the bunch soon closed him down and the racing began. As we hit the first climb the pace heated up. Craig Paul and Andrew Hill came to the front and really put down the hammer opening a small gap on us. I continued to ride out of my skin to try catch up and eventually I managed to close the gap. It was now Andrew, Craig and myself out in front, with Travis Walker and Andrew Warr about 40 seconds back.
We kept the pace really high for the first 10km with Craig doing most of the work. But as Craig made a slight mistake going into a corner I ended up finding myself on the front with craig and Andrew hot on my heels. I managed to hold the pace in front nicely until the 15km mark, when Andrew came to the front and began to open up a gap.
At the same time Travis Walker had also closed up the gap and had latched onto Craig and I. Unfortunately, Craig began suffering from stomach cramps, which was obviously affecting his ride, but he is super strong and hung in with us regardless until we reached the big climb of the day.
Now it was Trav and I trying to close the 2 min gap to Andrew which he had managed to open on us. The wind on the mountain was really cold and it was made worse with the thick mist and icy drizzle that we were now riding into. With 10km to go we had barely made and dent into the time gap. We really had to push it if we wanted to close the gap. With 5km left to the finish, Craig had put in a huge effort and rejoined Trav and I.
As Craig arrived the pace was upped nearly instantly, but with only 2km left we knew we wouldn't close down the gap, so it became a three way battle for 2nd overall.
Craig pushed the pace even harder and I really had to dig deep to try and stay with him, but the effort paid off as we managed to open a slight gap on Trav, but then disaster struck.
All three of us were sent back onto the 40km loop by the resident marshall, instead of being sent to the finish. We rode around mid-illovo for close on 5 minutes and realised we had been sent in the wrong direction. Between the three of us we decided to ride into the finish in the positions we held when we reached the final road crossing, and then rode back against the flow of the race and found our own way back to the finish. We had lost 3 positions, but the organisers decided to award us with 2nd, 3rd and 4th overall, as it was the Marshall's fault for sending us in the wrong direction.
I was super stoked with getting third overall, my best result at a classic. Congrats to the organisers, the course was brilliantly marked and awesome to race.
Hard luck to my good mate and fellow competitor, Jedson Tooms who took a crash of note on the day. Take it easy Jedi and we look forward to seeing you on the start line again soon.
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