Sharon set herself the challenge to ride the Trevallyn 4 hour on Sunday. A target of 5 laps in the 4 hours was her goal before the race having never done a mountain bike race of this length before. Each lap was about 10KM in length with just under 200M of elevation. A warm and sometimes windy day greeted us at the start. Setup and rego completed all to soon a quick start loop up the road and they were under way.

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Sharon came around a bit quicker than I expected on the first lap and surprised me as she called out coming through transition. She made a bad decision not to stop for food though. You must eat continually in these long events and on lap 2 when she stopped she was very hungry and shaky. I fuelled her up with banana bread, pikelets, a bar and more liquid. She came good during that lap once some of the food digested and learnt a valuable lesson in keeping fuelled. Some back soreness was starting to appear as the track is very rough and rocky in places.

2 Laps down and VERY hungry

With food and drink sorted another 2 laps went by with just one little crash on a very tricky section of rocks that grazed a leg and a bruise on the bum. Four laps down (40Km) and starting to feel tired the 5 lap target looked about right.

4 laps down – starting to feel it

Lap times has slowly extended and there was only 1 more left without a lot of pain. I jumped on my bike and headed off to the half way point of the lap to ride home with her and take a photo or 2.

https://instagram.com/p/8ZlzZjBFwxWch5SppdQWqpojvLqQrKR71KjN80/?taken-by=col135col135

Sharon was still going strong on the last lap as I rode in with her. We arrived at the finish line 4 minutes before the 4 hours finished and there was no point doing another lap as the person in front had started their 6th lap already so nothing would be gained. After the 4 minute wait she crossed the line very pleased with her efforts and achieving exactly what the target goal was.

https://instagram.com/p/8ZmJe8hFxQ_WiRkneXmvjtjFWO-EAG694PcxU0/?taken-by=col135col135

An awesome effort and goes to show what you can do if you put your mind to it. 4th overall in solo female, 3rd fastest solo female lap time all from the oldest female in the category by quite a bit. Online results here. Not sure the step up to the solo 6 hour in November is on the radar though, maybe in a team for that one.

5 laps, 4 hours, 50km – mission complete