World Marathon Championships - Villabassa, Italy

After picking up our hire car in Annecy (a Peugeot Partener minivan - cool), we took on the 9hr drive to Villabassa. It was an interesting drive that took us through the Mont Blanc tunnel, and plenty of Italian autostrade's. On friday i met up with the rest of the Aussie team and did a reconaisance of the last 10km track. I guess i got a little excited by the whole thing and managed to have a decent crash. I just layed it down around a fireroad corner at about 30kph, but it was about as good as crashes can be, the day before a big race, i lost a bit of skin off my hip, thigh, side and elbow, and i trashed a fresh set of aussie knicks....ouch. At least it made tyre selection easy, the semi-slicks were out and the Maxxis Monorails were in. I had my first decent look at the course map and it was pretty obvious that we would be for a big day, 120km with 3800m of climbing against a field of 134 riders.

Race day dawned to be perfect weather and i nervously waited for the 12 o'clock start. Me and most of the other Aussie's started down the back and we listen to all the big hitters (like Sauser, Fricshy, Martinez & Gilberto Simoni) getting called up to the line to the sound of bad 80's music and the constant sound of the TV helicopters circling. The pace at the start was one from the gun but before long we hit the first big climb, which was 1000 vertical meters, and the field was strung out. It was about 29 degrees and i was regreting not carrying much water, it's quite different to cooma weather at the time of year. I probably went a little hard up the first hill because i started to suffer through the middle section of the race and had a few problems with cramps. Fortunately i started to come good again on the last big climb and i managed to claw back a few places. I ended up coming in 78th place to be the 3rd Aussie in 5h58m. Definatley a big day, but i had a lot of fun on the downhills and met plently of other riders (including some of Simon Tarb-Jensons team mates from Denmark). The highest place Aussie was Josh Keep in 61st, which is an awesome result for the yougster.

I'm pretty happy with my race considering i only arrived on monday and haven't quite had time to settle in. It is quite a relief to get through without any major dramas and get a solid result at my first big race, hopefully i can build on that. I'm now looking forward to the Swisspower Cup in Savognin. I'm not sure i should have looked at the start list though, it is in alphbetical order and the first name is Absalon...bugger (for those that don't follow cycling, he is really fast).