Tour of Murray - Day 5 Stage 6

The day I was waiting for and was bound to happen..

105k Road Race, perfect weather, slight breeze, Tour of Murray up for grabs.

Not that I was there to see how the race unfolded.  The legs were done about 7-8k in and I was off the back after about 10-11k along with 10 others.

The big boys came to play to win the Tour and the minnows like me, suffered, a lot.

I know how the race unfolded, but this blog is about me :)  Post race seeing the winner averaged 48kph speaks for itself.  The groupetto that I was in, we still averaged 42kph, so we were not disgraced, just destroyed.

I knew early on that my legs were in strife, has been by far my biggest week in cycling as far as intensity and close to my biggest week ever in the saddle, esp if Saturdays 200k ride is included.  This 9 days will be close to 1000k's in the saddle, and surprisingly no saddles sores, that's a winner just there.  A tub of chamois cream has been used and absorbed though.

By the looks of my garmin, I lasted 17min 30 sec before popping.  The pace was on from the get go and was just unforgiving for all.



Once our group settled and a few of the team cars went passed into the distance we were rolling turns quite well, at times getting to high 40's into the 50's chasing but to no avail, no coming back today.

The rest of the ride was uneventful as we just tried to get home without being eliminated from the bunch, rolling turns, trying to stay consistent.  

To be honest it was probably the best training for me all week, no chance of falling, rolling consistent turns whilst fatigued and not giving up.

A few vomits meant that my body was suffering also.  All in all another great day, another box ticked.  Been a very successful week for me.


Today's final stage is a 31k crit around Yarrawonga and if I last more than 15min it will be a miracle.  My legs are just gone....I am mentally done also, it is very hard concentrating that hard every day at that intensity for that duration.  I take my hat off to the boys who do this for a living.  There is nothing like switching off once in the zone on a TT bike.  Will be happy to go back to that.

I think it will take longer for me to prepare than the race today, but I need to start to get a finish and keep my 100% record of finishing every race that I have started.

I had better start getting my stuff together, for people that know me, yes my stuff is everywhere.

This is the Pro Life...

X-Man