After a fitful nights sleep on bruised ribs and scraped arms and legs, I decided that I just wanted to finish the long race and not come last.
The start finish area was the same as the middle distance race, so up the hill again on the ride to assembly, but it seemed to take longer and felt tougher this morning. The weather was, again, glorious sunshine and blue skies as the riders lined up for the mass start with a plane circling overhead to film us. We were wearing DAG timing chips on our shoes as well as the usual SI and these were studiously checked by marshals on the way in.
We dumped our bikes in predetermined zones by race number and then walked back about 75 metres to the mass start line, where we lined up next to our upturned maps waiting for the countdown. On “Go!” all 70-odd of us careered over the meadow to our bikes and we were off. There were a few elbows but we all got away cleanly towards the start flag some 400m distant. At this point t
he gaffling (gaffle is the Swedish work for forking) took over, and the pack split in to 3 streams of riders to the 2 first controls via various route-choices some 3km distant uphill all the way.
I settled into a steady rhythm for the 15 minute climb tucked in behind a German, and apparently Andy Conn was the rider tucked in behind me the whole way up. On the way to number two my horrendously squeaky front brake unfortunately scared a group of horses we came across. The riders quickly brought it under control and we were off again but I decided on a route to number 3 avoiding another encounter. The tricky ‘dangerous’ descent from the middle race featured again today twice but a good line was forming on it and I rode it cleanly without incident. Out of number 5 I opted for a navigationally dangerous cut through which paid off fantastically, bringing me ahead of a group of top 20 riders who had just 
dropped me. Then it was a blast downhill towards the village. Unfortunately, Andy and I plus about 5 other riders started racing at this point forgetting the gaffleing and consequently everybody made a mistake. Mine was probably worst losing perhaps a minute as I relocated and found the control, but It was my only mistake of the race.
Andy pulled ahead at this point as I had a leg which took slightly longer but it was neck and neck.
We then looped through the start finish area and changed maps before attempting the other gaffled course first control, again a 15 minute climb. I started a cat and mouse game with a Russian who kept pulling ahead on the climbs only to make little errors allowing me to catch up. I’m sure I saw him thump the handlebars when I over took him again at one point 🙂
From 3 to 4 on the second loop, I again chanced a big forest cut though contouring and, agai,n it paid off pulling back in some riders who had just dropped me after I stopped to “mark my territory”.
I started racing again when I caught a small group, and was replaying a mantra in my head ‘ride your own race, ride your own race’ which seemed to work and I managed to overtake them and pull away without incident.
Turning the map over again as I punched the last control of the second loop I noticed two things: one, the last loop was short and technically difficult in terms of navigation, and two, Andy Conn was 10 metres in front of me!
I knew this was my chance and luckily I held it together in the complex network of tracks and open areas and managed to cleanly ride the next 4 controls pulling ahead of him by a couple of minutes.
The planner had an ace up his sleeve, however, with a really tricky second last control, which had people riding all over the place. I ended up half running half falling down a horrendously steep bank in a bid to stay ahead of the chasing pack which seemed to work. I had a final wobble on the way to the finish when, frantically trying to read the map at speed, I finally wiped a blob of mud away from the map-board to di
scover the location of the last control and the taped finish funnel, though lost about 20 secs in the process.
I gunned the run in and practically collapsed over the line to download thinking I was racing someone for the line (I wasn’t I suspect my shadow was tricking me). Considering my state at breakfast I was very pleased with the way I rode and was elated with 38th place.
Em had a fantastic ride to take 7th. Andy lost nearly 3 minutes to me on the last few controls and came in 43rd. Sarah came in a very tired 42nd.
After packing our bikes we all headed for a well earned Pizza on the lake front before driving for our flights with very tired legs.