Pre-running the Nemesis Marathon champs

I love it when a good ride gets a little bit epic :)

This morning in the well-darks, the Hoff and I headed to Avoca to meet up with the BigHillEvents guys to pre-run the Nemesis Marathon Champs to be held up there in just a couple of weeks. 90km on the mountain bike is a big day in anyones, but to add to that 3500vertical, well thats a whole lot more than we've got in our legs at this point in time!

So a fairly large crew were present and we all rolled out in the cool dry morning. And straight up a 8km fireroad climb. Now whilst it was a friendly pre-ride, legs attached to the bodies of the Merida Flight Centre team, and riders like Murray Spink, Phil Orr et al, meant that what was considered a casual pace at the front, was nothing short of deathly at the rear, and quite soon (and sadly) the Hoff was ejected rearwards.

We drummed up a plan of attack and the Hoff bailed when he could to get the wheels, and meet us at the halfway point of the course. I continued on with the bunch and we rocked on along some great trails. The first half, I can catagorically say, is excellent! Great decents, reasonable climbs but nothing like the opener, and some sweet singletrack.

Amusingly, the second half is where it gets fun... And uphill! The first 42k covered about 1100m of up, but the second half covers the remaining 2000+m in roughly the same distance. Apparently the bunch went a little bit sullen and quiet later in the day, something about being 'pretty hard' - hell, they don't give you a national jersey for nothing....!! I think Rohin may be prescribing to the 'suck it up, Princess' school of thought! Good on 'im!!!

So, in summary. Its long, and bloody hard. So I hear...

How about some pictures? (to come, blogger is playing funny buggers)