Slow progress

This past weekend I rode the 3 day Mankele 3 Towers Race with Gavin George. Firstly let me say what an amazing race. It's tough with 2 standout components - plenty of climbing and some awesome single track sections called "Bush Tunnels". The bush tunnels are essentially dry water courses carved out by storm water. They are thickly bushed with plenty of rocks in the dry river bed. A lot of effort has been made to clear a technical single track through these ravines often for a number of kilometres. Gavin was much stronger than me as expected. It was a bit of a wake up call for me ahead of The Munga. We finished 76/150 in GC and 24/50 in sub vets which is Gavin's age group. I didn't have enough power to scamper up the climbs and that cost us. Need to work on dropping more weight. Sean Badenhorst is in good shape and is a full 10kgs lighter than me. Excess blubber is a poor travel companion on a bike. 

A few days rest and it's back to the training grind. I need to improve both my endurance and speed. I have good plodding endurance but that will not serve well on The Munga as its going to be a flat fast race. Will plan to hook up with Sean for training rides and we can start figuring out how our riding styles are going to mesh. Interestingly enough we have only ever ridden together once and that was a short night ride.