The Wombat 100 in Woodend sounded great from all reports. Well run, a good location, a high percentage of singletrack and quality singletrack to boot. For 2009 I made my way over and teamed up with a couple of Victorians, Nick and Mr Tickle.

Saturday, off the plane, into my airport pick up and straight through to the campsite. It was dark and drizzly, optimal for unpacking and tweaking the bike in preparation for the early start the next day. Mr Tickle had been sent ahead earlier in the day to establish basecamp and a fine job he did too. After getting to the location, hurriedly rego-ing and parking the car, we discovered a satisfactory set up of tent, mattresses, sleeping bags etc. 

As the fine drizzle came down, I built the bike with the assistance of a few torches, whilst Nick footered around and Mr Tickle arranged beers. We noted the fact that many other competitors were already asleep in tents around us and made effort to keep the noise down, I think. Once everything was sorted, we re-beered and wandered off into the darkness to find the pre race party. 10 mins later, we came back and went to bed. The last thing I saw before the lights went out was a tired pair of Mr tickle pyjamas, game face indeed.

Morning broke and it was grey, cold and miserable outside the tent at 6am. With a 7am report to startline, we had to ingest food, gear up and attempt purges within an hour. Luckily we were organized, others however notso and the start was delayed 30mins. Standing there in the morning drizzle, geared up and ‘just’ warmed from riding around, this was not good news. Time to sit in car! Eventually, it was start time. During online sign up I decided to pay $10 Muppet tax and race Elite and so I lined up in a hairless group, humming “one of things does not belong”…

About 25mins in, I realised that perhaps I shouldn’t be trying to keep up with these people and I backed off to settle into my own pace. Contrary to sources, this event wasn’t flat. I learnt later that a few more hills had been thrown in and the course was reversed this year, providing more climbing up front and an easier run home at the end. Its certainly wasn’t Otway-Esque climbing, but it had some decent stuff in it. Such was the comprehensiveness of my race pre planning, my GPS unit died due to an uncharged battery after about 20kms, I was ‘ alone’ with no data or solid information to guide me, so I dis my best senior management impression for the rest of the ride...

Once the hills were broken, the course proved to be fun, diverse and technical. I had a few fun moments getting into ruts and spat out the other end in wobbly fashion. In a dash to a trailhead, myself and 2 others tangled as I got the holeshot. A good natured “ohhhh, sheepstations!” came from one of them, things were upbeat and flowing. At about 67kms I was over it though, some more hills had appeared and I was tiring. At this stage I had used both feedstations (at 30 and 66kms, hence knowing this was about 67kms in) for water, food and stretching – My newest tactic for preventing cramps was to use the feedstations as an opportunity for some preventative stretching. Prevention was indeed better than cure and I report no incidents of locked legs, standing proud up on the bike like a boats figurehead, careering into the bush swearing. But I was getting tired and the hills were back. Luckily, for motivation a chap that had left me behind sometime ago, came back into view. I set a goal of keeping him in sight and then a new goal of catching up with him. Achieving both these goals I decided it was time to strike. In a burst of slow motion, I left him in my wake over about 10mins…

At this stage, the singletrack came back, it was glorious, the best part of the day! Great, great track. Lots of flow and even the occasional mini tabletops. I saw the 20kms to go sign and did a status check of my legs with a few quick stretches, not too bad and so I decided to put the hammer down (albeit one of those yellow kiddies ones) and hope the last 20kms would be samesame singletrack, which in majority it was. Rounding the final section brought into view the race village and finish line, you could see how close it was, curse the lake in the middle as no chance of shortcut and go your hardest around the perimeter. Crossing the line was a confusing moment, they had volunteers lined up with freshly opened beers for each finisher and others to unclip the timing tag on your shoe. I upset the sequence and lunged at the beer distributer, whilst the unclipper, whom I had gone right past, chased me down for the timing tag.

6.00.38. A little bit annoying as “Sub6” would be so much cooler to say, but very happy with the time. Nick came in not soon after, a 6.13, with stories of crunchy gears and Muppets. Mr Tickle, closely affiliated but not in alliance with said Muppets came in after that, a whole family to greet him.

We celebrated by changing into warm clothes, eating kranskis and standing around watching wrecked people cross the line. Result!

Definitely one for the yearly calendar, well worth the trip and effort.