Stage 4 (Wednesday)

Stage 4 (Wednesday)
This morning started with the alarm going off at 4.45am. I am not a fan of such an early start. Bed was nice and warm. I hit snooze and had to get up when the alarm went for the second time.

We then drove over an hour west out of town for a 70km point to point race. As we all got ready we were informed the stage was cut short by 7kms.

We were off and racing at 7.30am. It was another mass start and unfortunately I got stuck behind a couple of giggling ladies. They were very amused about loosing control in the sand. I took the first opportunity to get around them. Fortunately they did help to slow the field down behind them.

It started responsibly flat and lucky for me it stayed that way. We had a little sand to contend with but nothing like yesterdays stage.

I was very grateful for the lack of hills.

It took me past the 15kms before my legs felt ok before that they were just very heavy. They felt like tree trunks.

The first water point at 20kms rolled around pretty easy.

With about 30kms ridden a rider rode past that I rode to the start of yesterday’s stage with. He said a quick “G’day” and started putting the power down. I was feeling as though I was holding back a bit so decided to stay with him. It wasn't long before we were working really well together.

And before we knew it we were at the 40km water point. I stopped to grab a bottle and the other rider waited for me. From here I knew it was 8kms of road so we stuck together. Before long we picked up some other riders and it wasn’t long before we had 10 riders taking turns on the front. At this point we were doing 39kms/hr. We were flying, exactly what I needed after my bad luck on Stage 1. I was overtaking a lot of riders I knew where placed higher than me.

As the road section was coming to an end we started dropping some of the riders. We hit the dirt with just 4 of us. From here on we split up.

The last part of the stage was on a sandy creek bed. This was not fun, a real calve burner. I hit the finishing straight with 3 riders behind me and we all sprinted to the finish.

I finished this stage 70th in my category.


Currently I am placed 89th in my category.