Fortunately for me, I had Friday off work, so I managed to get a go faster haircut, drink a decent cup of coffee, track down an afternoon massage, hose down the bike and lube the chain, before grabbing a bite to eat and driving down to Dwellingup that evening.

Down in Dwellingup I caught up with Scott, Devan and family as well as Dave and Lorraine. Thanks again to those guys for letting me crash their party at the last minute. Scott was busying himself spotlessly cleaning his rig and organising gear and supplies for the following morning’s events.

I was paying close attention as I felt like I should doing something useful as well, but didn’t think that filling my two bidons and throwing on my nicks in the morning would take too much time. We all turned in at a decent hour for what would be an early start in the morning.

The following morning down at the oval I readied myself for my race. Being as this was my first MTB race in SPR kit, I opted for the Euro Roadie look (as much as is possible on a mountain bike). White nicks and no camelback were the orders of the day. This left me with a few things to figure out, like where to stash all my spares, gu’s and such sans camelback. A roll of gaffers tape later I was good to go.

Bumped into a few friends and took flak from them for not partaking in the 100km event (I have my reasons and I can refer you to my physio if you would like to discuss them). I headed down to the start line and to the SPR tent that was now set up. Nigel, Chris and Pete made an appearance at this point, and before long it was time for the guys to line up for the 100km event.

Thirty minutes later it was time for the 40km event. I positioned myself pretty close to the fast fellas, as I had some intentions of staying relatively close to them. Soon we were off and I rolled out with a couple of friends who were also taking part in the Dwellingup La Soft 40km. Out of the oval and onto the bitumen I moved myself up into the 2nd group on the road, figured this was a reasonable place to be to start off with.

Into the track system and I still had a visual of the leading group. 10km in we hit ‘Big Bertha’, one of the toughest hills in the event, a lot of walking was going on here, especially as we had started to catch up with some of the 100km event back markers. I rode about ¾ of the way up, before questioning the efficiency of riding vs. pushing. I opted to jump off and push the last section, and pretty much kept up with the guys who were around me and still on their bikes.

From the top of ‘Big Bertha’ the following 8km was pretty much a downhill run, and I didn’t have any trouble keeping up with the guys that were immediately around me, though I had lost sight of the leading group at this stage. Hitting the 20km marker, I was feeling pretty good, realising my day was already half way through. By this point we were constantly passing back markers from the 100km event and would continue to do so until we were back at the oval.

From 21km to 25km we had a steady section of climbing to do, and setting a decent pace myself and one other rider bridged up to another two guys who were competing in our event. Spotting them I hoped to sit in with these guys for the remainder of the race and hopefully try and grab a few extra places before the finish.

Around the 25km mark we hit some sweet downhill single track. The four of us got a pretty nice run down through it, not crossing paths with too many slower riders. However, at this point my saddle bag somehow unhitched itself from my saddle, leaving it flapping around and hitting me in the leg. I couldn’t continue on like that so had to stop, and properly re-attach it. It only took a matter of seconds, but between stopping and re-starting a few other riders got inbetween myself and the group I’d been with.

Climbing again, I hoped to catch up to those guys. Still no sign of them, I hit the bitumen on the run into town, smashing it as hard as I could I passed plenty more back markers, but wasn’t able to catch up to my previous group.

I crossed the line in 02hrs 02min 27secs, in 14th place overall (of 328 total starters, or 5th place in males 19-39, of 169 in category). Just for comparison sake, the chap that won the 40km event did so in 01:42:33. The 100km event winner and current world 24hr solo mountain biking champion, Jason English covered the same distance (albeit whilst doing the 100km) in 01:43:00. Places 1 through 3 in the 40km event were held by lads in U19, U15 and U17 respectively, including the U15 Australian National XC champion… these grommets can ride!