There were a few things on my mind,
the courses here in Canada seem to be more technically demanding than the races in the UK were so how sore would my arms get,
I was going to be trying out my 29er which is a hardtail, most of the longer races i've done solo were on my SantaCruz SuperLight,
and i've not done any really long rides recently, so no specific preparation.
I ended up starting a little too fast, but after 3 laps i settled into a sustainable pace. The course was heavy going and a large portion of each lap was narrow rooty singletrack, great fun but tiring. At about laps 5 or 6 i felt what turned out to be the worst i felt all day, i think it might have been a mixture of recovering from the three fast laps at the start and not drinking enough. The sun was out and it was warm so staying hydrated important. i ended up drinking 20 water bottles worth of water and sports drink.
Once i was in a rhythm things steadied out, lap times were consistent and my legs felt good, for the 12 hours i didn't stop for more than about 30 second at any one time. I couldn't quite match the pace of the guy who won but i think i gave him a hard enough time. 2nd felt good enough though.
Lots of rest now, the next race is a road criteruim in Vancouver on Canada day, that'll be quite different from Cumberland for sure.
clean clothes at the start
happy to be finished
tiring day for everyone
tan/mud line
