Musselman

As I said, I'm catching up with posts.

This sunday I raced the Musselman. Its a great event put on each year by Chris James.

The race goes from Picton to Nelson,

• 10k paddle
• 41k road bike
• Lunch stop
• 40k mtb
• 8k run

The paddle went well, John and Dan were off. Trevor and I worked together, we got a bit of a gap on everyone else.

The road bike started well, I had a good first transition. Trevor got held up by cramps and I got a gap. I had planned on working together through to Pelorous. The ride was going well and I had brought John and Dan back from over 2mins to 30s. However I got a flat, and this prob cost me about 7 or 8 minutes.

After an awesome lunch that my flatmate, Freya (she also did the race) put together. We headed off on the MTB. It was raining and cold at Pelorous Bridge, so I wore a jacket. (big mistake)

George Baxter took off, sprinting away right from the start. I stayed as close to him as I could, pretty quickly it was down to George, myself, Trev, and Dan. We starting heading up the climb, and i started getting hot! The clouds were clearing and the sun was coming out. I took off my cap under my helmet and promptly dropped it. It took me quite a while to catch the others.
About 2/3s the way up the climb, I got a gap. It sort of happened without me meaning to do anything, so I just kept riding. Getting to the top of the hill, I zipped up my jacket, pulled my top and thermal down (I had them up like a midriff top, FOR THE LADIES!).

Barring one mishap where I ended up unclipped lying on my seat superman styles the downhill went well. I hammered down the road from the dam and then proceeded to sprint the last run down to the finish in town. I was on the limit the whole way down. Sitting here now, 3 days later I still have heaps of fatigue from that last effort.

In the end I finished 1 minute behind Trevor. Its always a fun race, and I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to chase back after the puncture.

Freya ended up in third place in the womens, a good result for no real training!