I wasn't competing in the Day Night Thriller for fun, but more for practice for the 24hr Worlds next month.
2 weeks ago I competed in the 1st round of the PNP, unfortunately is was a miserable day and rained throughout the race and unfortunately for me I got very sick from this. I had the the following week off work which worried me for upcoming Day Night Thriller.
We were pretty well organised for the Day Night Thriller, we had a good setup, we were practiced.
I was then lined up at the Start line with the rest of the competitors, we were stretched across this field and there was a lot of us. Actually there was a massive amount of us at the start line, more people I have ever seen on any start line aside from the 160km Taupo round the lake.
We had the count down from ten and then started. We all raced across this short field and then into this right corner. Things where very tight, I was mid field and if felt like everyone had their elbows out. We then got onto the course and things were very congested, I felt like I was crawling along at times it almost impossible to pass the thick throng of riders, I was in a huge traffic jam.
I rode the 1st 2 laps quite aggressively, constantly passing people, trying to work my was past all the slow riders that had started ahead of me and there was a lot of them.
By the 4th lap I had slowed down and settled into a pretty good pace that I was happy with, but still constantly passing people. I felt like I was using more energy calling to pass than actually riding the course. There were a lot of riders on the course, much much more than the Moonride, fortunately there were many places to pass.
After 4 hours I started getting some mean back pain and this continued to get worse, I also wasn't feeling so good, I guess I was still recovering from being sick. After 7.5 hours of riding non stop I pulled into my pits and had a sit down. I wasn't feeling so good, my legs were fine but my back was sore, I lacked energy and motivation. It then started to rain and I thought given the circumstances I would pull out.
The Day Night Thriller wasn't a race for me, it was a good 7.5 hour training ride.
