Sitting at work, beavering away on my project juggling skills (keeping the clients all happy isn’t for the light hearted)… the phone rings… it’s Princey Prince or more commonly known as “The Mechanic” from our CACT 2007 mission.

I’m flat out with paperwork, migrations and engineers asking question and Princey is pitching an idea to me. “Lets do a 24 hour Mountain bike Ride” he says, my immediate response is “What? Are you nuts? Get F&@cked!, we haven’t trained”. “It’ll be a good laugh and something different to do, you don’t need to ride the full 24 hours, just do a few laps at a time” The conversation ended shortly after the “Sales Pitch” and my busy day took care of me not having time to look into the details on the site.

Fast forward to me sitting on the couch… or what I like to call “my cycling taper position!” The mobile rings and I can hear the mechanical voice on the mobile call out “Pruncie Prunce”. Nokia needs to work on that voice. So I know who it is before getting to the phone, it all come flashing back to me about the “Sales Pitch”.

Fear not for I’m on the Laptop planning my next kit purchase/design. The link to the site is up in a few seconds, while talking I’m confirming with my “Management and events Co-Ordinator” that I’m not booked out for the weekend of April 19-20^th. No I’m free, and approval is singed off.

I hang up from Princey and think about it for about a minute. I think of the lack of training, the fact that my Giant TCR C1 has been hanging in the shed for over a year and only been ridden on bike paths and never seen real dirt, let alone do more than 20kms per ride. This in turn brought on thoughts of Fatty’s post about his new MTB and how they both felt about their first ride together. The negative are piling up against me. “Oh bugger it, I’m in!” I think to myself. It’ll hurt but it’ll be fun. Yes you guessed it, after filling in my entry and hitting the “Submit” button there was no way back, I signed up for a 24 hour Mountain Bike Race.

I haven’t ridden off-road for at least 2 years, my current training has been about 120kms per weekend for the past few weeks. My mind soon thinks is time to get over to “Mr 24” site… yes, yes the mighty “Kerkove” will have the answers, if not than I’m praying for some training inspiration from him yet again. I do admit to heading over to his site to seek inspiration as this man trains and rides, he’s living my dream!

As it’s only 2 weeks off the likely hood of me completing the race is good. This is if I follow a race strategy: Training is out of the question, I will put in a few test rides on the MTB to prep it for the day (It’s worth looking good if you ride crap!).

The plan is to look at the race in blocks of laps. As the course is a 10k loop I’m tipping I’ll start off in 5 lap efforts. Riding through the night is an option… but not for me! I have a set of kick arse lights that I’ll strap on for some light night riding. Sleep will not be missed out. I have every intention of having a good night sleep… I’m thinking 10pm – 6am. This gives the Pros some time to make up on lost ground! Yes confidence is high on a result. After a long comfy sleep I intend to have a cooked breakfast and laze about until the morning warms up. Should be on the bike for the last 2-3 hours to get so laps in and ensure that I don’t record a DNF. I will report back in this adventure after the 20 April, there are 3 of us heading down, I’m tipping only one (aka:Dazza) will have his race face on.