Left home early and arrived in Gayndah around 9.30.
Caught up with LB, found my tent and went and registered.
The camp at Gayndah.
All kitted out and ready to head off to the start line.
On the start line - it took ages to get this photo taken; the very nice man who offered to take it kept turning the camera off or switching it so it faced him! We finally got there.
While waiting in a queue at the park toilets I was stunned to see my Grade 2 and 3 teacher walk past; I couldn't believe my eyes. The woman is 70 and first got on a bike in January and was stoked when she made it around the block and thrilled when she completed her first 6.5km ride. If that's not inspiration, what is?
Actually - this is....Drew sent me a quote an hour before the starting hooter went off -
"I'd rather be standing at the top of the hill that I just dominated unable to breathe, ready to puke, hair matted to my forehead, than at the bottom wondering what it would feel like"....
Two hours later, I totally knew what it meant. We rolled along in the crowd for a while - then hit the Gayndah range - 1.6km of 9% gradient. I counted, I gasped, I gritted my teeth, my quads and glutes burned and over and over again I chanted in my head "puke and hair, puke and hair" and I just didn't stop. I watched the metres on my speedo slowly climb as I inched my way up. 1km to go, 700m to go, 500m to go - it was so hard but so worth it to get to the top - unable to breathe, ready to puke and hair matted to my forehead! It was AWESOME!!
We continued on and came across two more nasty little hills, one of them very short but with a peak of 18% (someone with a Garmin told us later) - I thought there was something wrong with my bike! It was cruel. Somehow I got to the top - invoked "puke and hair" again and just dug deep.
When we weren't riding up hills it was really quite pleasant countryside - thousands of citrus trees, lots of smoke from surrounding fires and no wind.
LB took this photo at the afternoon tea stop; it's a favourite.
After 57km off bitumen we arrived back in Gayndah, sore and satisfied and amazed at what we'd achieved. That range was a killer; LB estimated that 75% of the riders actually walked up.
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