Time to rest..... BOO.

I made a few not so great decisions in the past couple of weeks that lead to me not being fully fit for the Scott. Racing your bike for 24hours requires your mind and body to be fit and healthy and unfortunately mine is currently not in the required state. The first mistake I made was ordering prawns for dinner in Albury the night before our 440km mtb ride back to Canberra. (see previous blog for more gnarly details on what went on there), my stomach has still not recovered and I am awaiting test results from the doctor regarding parasites in my stomach from our visit to Cambodia earlier this year, let’s just say things haven’t been real peachy in the stomach department since then.

The other mistake I made was letting a mate have a spin on my anthem the day before the epic ride and not remembering my seat post height, getting it wrong and riding for 10 ½ hours with it, waking up with a very sore knee which is also still hanging round. And the third mistake was to ignore the niggle in my lower back in the weeks leading up to the epic ride, although the only reason I ignored it and didn’t see anyone was due to living in a pretty remote area it takes about a month to see anyone or a lengthy drive which with school being so busy I wasn’t able to get it looked at.

The epic hike a bike section on the ride turned that niggle into a more substantial injury that is giving me some grief. When deciding whether I  would race the Scott lots of things were going through my head, but I haven’t got to race a 24 this year, you’re just making excuses, your back and knee and stomach will be fine come race day...... in the past I probably would have listened to these voices! But the older and wiser..? me realised my body is yelling at me for a break, it wants rest, I really don’t want to give it rest but I know if I am to be healthy and fit again my mind will have to give in. I was ready and rearing to go to Canada for the Worlds and then to try to fit in another 4 weeks of hard training to maintain that fitness for the Scott ended up not working, and that again was through my own mistake of being told to have 3 days rest but riding with the boys into a massive headwind doing efforts on those days, what was I saying about me being ‘older and wiser....?’

So I’m bummed not to be at the Scott and wish all competitors the best of luck, I’ll be heading to Melbourne to do a cruisy road ride with the Liv/Giant crew which I’m most excited about, heading to AusBike Expo to see all the latest toys and gizmos and then watch some mates run the Melbourne Marathon! On the upside I’ll be able to do a heap of races in November/December like Highland Fling and, SS Nationals and Rosewhite 12hour, which I am normally too stuffed from the Scott to do.

I'll try to enjoy resting as much as this fella is