Sydney to the Gong

Sat AM: 9.3K Run - Quickish (5:32 pace), comfortable.
Sun: 84K Ride - MS Sydney to the Gong Ride.

I intended to have a short run at normal training pace on Saturday, but the legs just wanted to go a bit faster, and the cardio system didn't seem to mind, so I pumped out 9.3K at 5:32 pace and pulled up well.

I found out yesterday that an old family friend was doing the Gong ride today, and I hadn't seen her for about five years, so I arranged to meet her at the start and we caught up over a very leisurely 90 minutes at the start of the ride. This meant that I did the first 30K at about 15kph.

I decided to push myself a bit after this, and pushed on into the low 20's for the next bit before the brake testing descent into the Royal National Park. I knew we would pay for all of this glorious speed later in the ride, and this happened during several painful acsents back out of the park and soon afterwards. The most embarrassing moment was when I finally succumbed to the temptation to put the bike into the girly small chainring and the chain came off on a steep uphill. I had buckleys of getting any momentum to start (even in the girly small chainring) so I had to push the bloody thing up the hill wearing my cleats - a real "all the gear and no idea" moment.

The last ten K was a bit of a hoot as we hit som reasonably flat highway and I was able to keep a pretty constant high thirties for a few K.

So I finished the ride in 4:28 excluding rest stops. The brochures say 88K. The Garmin says 83.74. Either way it's my longest ride ever, and I have slight sunburn (I bathed in sunscreen before the ride, but should've reapplied) and sore legs and back to prove it. I'll run tomorrow, how far and fast depends on how I feel.