MEGAVALANCHE!

I qualified in position 88 out of 164 riders in my wave, in 41min 12.88secs. That put me in the second wave of the Megavalanche (also know as the MEGAPROMO) on row Y (rows went upto Z4) against 400 other riders.... Super pleased with that....

So Megavalanche day dawned and we made our way to the lifts for 7:30am. It took a while to reach the top, and we were ready for action at 3300m at around 9:30am. The ladies went before us and 20minutes later off we went!
It was carnage from the start, my lack of snow riding skills meaning I was being overtaken, although I didn't crash and there were people going down all around me. The second snow slope I picked my bike up and slid down on my arse, as did lots of other people (great helmet cam footage of this)
So onto the rocks, and lots of traffic, most riders seemingly unable to ride the dop offs and causing queues (I was shouting "ride it, ride it!"), in my helmet cam footage you can hear my brakes squeal all the time as I am keeping my speed in check because of slower riders in front. The helmet cam footage comes to a sudden stop as I somehow manage to crash with a front wheel washout....
The next singletrack section was better, with the helicopter coming down real close and taking lots of shots (maybe I'll make it into Dirt magazine) - then onto a fast grassy section into ADH. Lots of people cheering, and we went through the bike park where I jumped onto the fun box and back off much to the crowds satisfaction!
The bottom half of the track I had not practiced (bad idea) - but there were lots of climbs, lots of singletrack, muddy river crossings, super fast forest descents, the tinyiest bridge over a ravine where I missed the bridge and had to bunny hop the ravine. At 1hr 18mins I had to stop on a push up some singketrack in the woods. I was feeling spent at this point.
I arrived in Allemont in around 1hr 35mins. The winning time was 48mins, and Mat got 14th place in the MEGAPROMO with 1hr 10mins (awesome riding Mat!)
Not sure of my position yet, but I guess somewhere around 230 out of 400.
Absolutley amazing trail to ride. It has every kind of surface you can imagine, climbs and huges descents, switchbacks, muddy sections, flat out forest sections, the trail has it all. It takes all your concentration and fitness to keep the bike going for over an hour over extremely hostile terrain.
You should try it :D
I'll be back next year....
Having a bath now I am goosed......

UPDATE: Results are now in, and the MEGAPROMO (megavalanche 2nd wave) and MEGAFFINITY (megavalanche 3rd wave) look to have been counted together, so I managed 346th position out of 611 in 1hr 37mins 24.920seconds

qualification results here http://www.internet-diffusion-2.com/photos/pdf/77.pdf
MEGAPROMO results here http://www.internet-diffusion-2.com/photos/pdf/87.pdf