Sunday, September 03, 2006

Pure Blonde 1/2 Epic

Update: Official final times!
Nige: 2:34:39
  • placed 1st in a field of 31 contestants
  • would have come second in the Elite men category
  • An Elite athlete

compared to...

Hash: 3:26:37
  • placed 15th in the same field
  • would have beaten none of the Elite men
  • Ahhh... mediocrity at it's best

Rest of results here


Firstly congratulations to Nige for unofficially coming first in the 18-29 category for the 50km Pure Blonde half epic (we are waiting for them to post the times, but we're pretty sure he did), and congrats to Damo and Adam for also making the grade.

Why on earth would anyone ever pay $102 dollars so that they could ride 50km in as short a time as possible? Well I did, and I have to say I found myself wishing on some parts of the ride that I didn't. The hills were tall and the tracks muddy. The only saving grace was the long down hills where I could pass all those riders fitter than me on the uphill. I also suffered the ignominy, as they passed me again on the next hill.

I say passing some one up a hill is not as glory ridden as flashing by them on the downhill with no hands at the anchors!

I think if I do this again I would like to train a little more so that I can actually ride more of the hills rather than having to dismount so often. Some quick stats for the day are shown in the output from my heart rate monitor.


Thick red line is heart rate
Blue is speed
Dark red is altitude
The triangles at the bottom are pace indicators showing the distance I covered in 10 minutes, ie large triangles = fast pace, small triangles = slow pace
Orange line = temperature

Ride time (time spent moving the bike as opposed to standing around trying to suck in oxygen) = 3hr 5mins
Total time = 0846 - 1207 (so I spent about 21 minutes gasping for breath or working out cramps)
I drank about 5L of water and consumed three energy gels

Distance ridden = 52.4km
Max speed = 53.3km/h
Mean speed = 17.1km/h
Max BPM = 170
Mean BPM = 149
Ascended 875m

The most amazing thing I found was the 5th or 6th, 110km Full Epic Pro/Elite rider arriving at the finish line at about the same time as I did! I wonder how much more he had to pay for his pain?

2 comments:

amy said...

i demand a lab report using the scientific method. 1000 words. aims, method, results, discussion, conclusion.

Unknown said...

Which Amy is this?! but I know three Amys (ies?) who would view this page. However Amy D would have her blogger photo come up... usually

Well... Amy... I'm in the process of drawing blood samples and testing them for endorphine levels as well as studying the level of dead red corpuscles in my urine to see how my body is function post event and the rate at which it recovers.

Will post my dissertation sometime soon! :P