KLMTB Shouldham Warren 6hr Enduro 2015

I've not raced an MTB event of this length solo before, in fact I've not raced my MTB at all since February and have very much favoured the road bike throughout the summer.  In addition to this, various other events and a severe bout of DIY in the run up to the race had kept me from the level of training I'd have liked.

The race was at Shouldham Warren, a surprisingly hilly venue just south of Kings Lynn.  I'd decided I'd ride as hard as I could for lap 1 to build up a reasonable position in the pack and then back off for the remainder of the event; subsequent advice and experience tells me that this isn't the best strategy...
Essentially a lack of experience and preparedness was building up to a perfect storm of how not to do an event!

The course was approximately 6 miles long; lap 1 went well with minimal hold ups and I was feeling strong.  Lap 2 also went well although I realised I wasn't pacing myself as much as I should be...  I backed off quite a bit for laps 3 and 4 but by the end of lap 4 my thighs were starting to cramp - with over 4 hours still remaining, this wasn't good!  I backed off further for lap 5 and attempted to hydrate (carbs and electrolyte) as much as possible but the cramp had well and truly taken hold at this point and much of my head-start was trickling away.

The course which had seemed challenging-yet-fun to begin with had become hard work and gruelling, with some of the climbs definitely much steeper than they were to begin with!

At the end of lap 6, a little under 2/3rds of the way through, I stopped for a few minutes to ditch my CamelBak and to refuel.  I was surprised to find the CamelBak was still about 1/3rd full; I definitely hadn't been hydrating enough!  D'oh...

From that point on, "each lap was definitely going to be my last", "there was no way I was going to carry on", "this was a stupid way to be spending a Sunday" - my bottom lip was sticking out so far it was affecting my aerodynamics!  But I did manage to slog on until the end, eventually completing 9 laps (1 short of my original target).  I even managed a sprint finish to overtake another rider who I'd swapped places with quite a few times throughout the race!

I finished in a slightly disappointing 20th place (of 38 soloists) but given my lack of experience and preparation I can't complain.

All in all, the event was excellent; the course was challenging, varied and and kept you interested.  The organisation was great with a good atmosphere in the arena and out on the course and it was good to try something new.  However, next time (which is something I swore at the time there wouldn't be) I'll definitely pace myself better from the off, and make sure I'm hydrating as much as possible!

PS: If anyone tells you East Anglia is flat, they should try spending 6hrs MTBing around Shouldham Warren!

Wattisham Triathlon 2015

Four years ago I finished my first Wattisham Tri in 1:08:48, the next year a helicopter stopped play and I only managed to finish a few seconds quicker. Last year I got it down to 1:01:42; I was really pleased with this improvement and had convinced myself I wasn't going to be able to better that.

A good result at the Culford Tri (different distances) a couple of weeks ago had started to make me optimistic that I might be able to shave a bit off last year's time.  I'd even started to wonder whether I might be able to get under an hour...

The weather was very similar to Culford a few weeks earlier.  The sky was grey and it was drizzling off and on.  In the induction the Race Director warned us that parts of the course were slippy.  As we set up the transition area the rain eased off, but never felt far away.

As usual I faffed with my transition layout, putting everything in one order, then another and repeated this until I was suitably annoyed with myself.  I noticed someone near me had placed their number belt on the tri-bars bars and rested their helmet on top.  I decided to give this ago to make them easier to get at and leave less gear cluttering under the bike.

For the swim I'd planned to do my usual thing of keeping a steady pace and not pushing too hard, and as planned I started off steady.  A couple of lengths in I was feeling pretty good so started to push harder.
T1 went OK; relocating the number belt and the lid worked well (there was some faffing getting the number the right way around but that was me not the layout) and the harder swim didn't appear to have taken a toll.

A little way into the ride I was starting to feel queasy and needing to burp, but each burp was bringing up bile...  I managed to ride on through this and don't think it held me up at all, but the first few miles weren't too enjoyable.  Around the time the sick feeling cleared the heavens decided we'd be dry long enough and the rain started again.
The runway is a feature of the Wattisham Tri, with you riding all the way up it and then back down again.  It's notorious for having a strong wind which can halve your speed in one direction and double it in the other!  Of the 4 times I've done the event this was the first where that didn't happen, despite the rain, the wind was minimal and I seemed to average around 21-23mph in one direction and 25-27mph in the other!
Towards the end of the ride as I left the airfield and joined the road back to the sports centre my back wheel skidded massively on a wet bit of road!  I somehow managed to keep upright but swung out far too wide onto the other side of the road just as another rider was heading towards me!  Fortunately he was still about 40ft away and I was able to get back over to my side without impeding either of us too much.  Unfortunately, just as this happened the Race Director was driving along behind the other rider and he gave me a proper drill-instructor-type shouting at...  I worried that this might get me a time penalty but tried not to think about it and just pushed on with my ride.

At Culford I suffered bad cramping as I tried to change my shoes in T2.  This time I suffered a little but not enough to hinder me.  As I set off running I realised I still had my helmet on and had to double-back to leave it with my bike, I'd guess this cost me 10-15s.

I'd used my Garmin 500 to track the ride as usual, but I'm not normally able to track my run, this time I'd used a TomTom Multisport which did the job well enough, but in future I need to spend some time setting the metrics shown on the screen better.  The main metric I wanted to know was my current average pace, unfortunately it was showing it in kph rather than mph so I struggled to translate it.
Run went well, the ground had held up despite the rain and I didn't suffer any cramping (legs or diaphragm).
The watch was telling me that it was going to be close to being under an hour, which helped spur me on and I gave everything I had up the final straight!

As I crossed the line the announcer shouted my name and that my time was under an hour at 59:30!  At that point no other competitors had gone that quick and if I'd had that time last year I would have been 2nd overall!
For a few minutes it was all quite exciting but soon enough reality kicked in and other competitors were coming in under the hour too. 

Finished in 00:59:30!
7th of 244 overall and 3rd of 27 in category (40-44).
Swim (300m) + T1: 00:06:24
Bike (20km) + T2: 00:34:05
Run (5km): 00:18:59
Results here.

I was approx 3m 20s from 2nd overall and 4m 30s from 1st.

I was 25s from 2nd in my category and and 4m 30s from 1st.

2014 Times
Swim + T1: 00:06:39
Bike + T2: 00:35:12

Run: 00:19:51

Culford 2 Triathlon 2015

I initially entered Ipswich Tri Club's Culford 2 event to support a mate who was doing his first tri, but it would also help to gauge my readiness for Wattisham a few weeks later.

The event is held on the grounds of the very posh Culford School; the swim takes place in their sports centre, the ride consists of 3 laps of the public roads that border the grounds and the run covers 2 laps of the perimeter of sports fields and a long driveway/path.

The forecast was changeable throughout the week, and ended up being drizzly on the morning, it stayed dry for most of the event, however the heavens opened during the run.

When we arrived we drove along the bike route to check for standing water and pot-holes and just to get a feel for how tight/open the turns were.

Notable details;

• Swim: 300m, Bike: 21km, Run: 4km
• Transition points were pre-allocated
• I kept banging my hands on the bottom of the shallow end of the pool
• Run to T1 was pretty big; few hundred meters
• The ride had a single foot-down stop per-lap at a road junction

 I took the swim steady, as I have for the last few tris, not wanting to tire myself early on.  The person before me had dropped out so I had a clear swim.  This also meant my transition point had one less bike in it which helped prevent it from being overcrowded.

The ride went well, there was minimal standing water despite the earlier rain, although having to perform a foot-down stop each lap was tricky to get right.  Fortunately there were no cars for each of my laps so I was able to get going again straight away.

In T2 my thighs cramped horrendously.  Trying to get my trainers on seemed impossible, and was made especially hard by the fact I'd used the "loop lacing lock" tip which meant they were harder to pull on than normal.  I probably lost 30s due to this, but after much spasming I managed to get the trainers on and out onto the run!

The run went well, although it started to rain fairly heavily after about 1km, this left some of the surface fairly slippery and trying to stay upright while navigating one particular hairpin was tricky.  The course was flat apart from one evil bump, which wasn't long but was steep enough to knock all momentum out of my stride.

I finished 8th of 185 overall and 3rd of 22 in my category (Male 40-44).
Swim (300m): 5:35 (68th)
Bike (21km) + T1: 36:51 (8th)
Run (4km) + T2: 14:46 (12th)
Total: 57:12

I was approx 3mins from 2nd overall and 9mins from 1st.
I was approx 30s from 2nd in my category and and 2mins from 1st.

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 4

Round 4 : Brandon Country Park : 22nd February
With a 13th at round 1 and 21st at both rounds 2 and 3 I was sitting in 7th overall in the series standings.

In the weeks leading up to the race I'd found my pace has improved quite a bit and my single-track handling was back to something like normal, so I was hopeful of being further into the top 20 this time.

The morning was cold but bright and the forecast said it should warm up as the morning went on, rain wasn't due until an hour or so after the race. I decided to trust the weather man and opted for non-winter gear, baring my legs and leaving the winter boots in the car!

Although I was gridded I wasn't comfortable with my position in the pen and got off to an apprehensive start, feeling I could put more power down but not finding it easy to jostle among the other riders. After the first couple of fire-road bends there was a long straight where I managed to push onwards and was able to retake a few places before the first section of single-track.

The course was excellent, with lots of single-track and with a surprising amount of climbing. TMTBR had been a bit evil with the end of the loop which took us up the bottom of the Plumb-buster then across and up the Nutcracker (very narrow and steep)!

I can't have lost too many places as I didn't find much in the way of hold-ups along the course but the poor start niggled at me for the rest of the race. Lap 3 was eerily quiet and forcing myself to push on was hard without other riders around to pace myself with. I played a game of imaging Ady and Wingar were just around the corner ahead and I was trying to close them down...  At the start of lap 4 Karen told me that Cavey wasn't too far ahead which spurred me on for the final lap (even though he's in a different cat). Around half-way through the lap I caught a few glimpses of him in the distance and finally, at the bottom of the Plumb-buster I managed to catch and pass him, but found a slow queue heading up the Nutcracker. At the top I chased after a couple of others from the queue (not knowing if they were in my cat or not) along a draggy straight to the finish line but wasn't able to catch them.

Once again I'd targeted a top 20 finish, and as I'd gone into this round feeling stronger than last time I'd hoped on a reasonable improvement on the 21st place I'd finished in the last 2 times.

I turns out the 2 blokes I was chasing at the end were in my cat after all, and I finished 19th (7s off 17th!). The full series rankings haven't been published but after fiddling with a spreadsheet I think I've worked out that I finished 11th in the series overall.

I had hoped all the training would have got me a few places nearer the top 10 but it can't be helped. I suspect a weak start and not having anyone to chase in lap 3 cost me a few places. This is my last year as a Senior and I'll be a vet next time round, if I'd been in that cat yesterday I'd have finished 11th...

Roll on next season...

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 3

Round 3 : Mayday Meadow : 25th January
An xmas of being ill and lazy had taken its toll...  I'd put quite a lot of effort into training through January but it was largely undoing the damage from December's lurgy and Xmas's lethargy...  By the middle of the week before the race I was feeling pretty quick again, but knew I wasn't quite where I had been in Nov/Dec.

The ground was frozen solid when I arrived but the forecast was for it to warm up as the morning went on.  I was well wrapped up for the pre-ride, but I decided to leave the buff and jacket in the car and change my longs for shorts and my winter boots for normal SPDs for the race.

I was gridded again and got off to a reasonable start, someone fell in front of me on the first corner but I managed to avoid him without hitting anyone else.  The course had a lot of fire-road (normally a weakness of mine) but the hours of looping around Alton Water appeared to have paid off as I was able to keep my place along it.  There was a small queue at the first single-track section but mostly lap 1 flowed well.  At the end of lap 1 another rider fell in front of me, he clipped the bike in front and went down, fortunately I was able to avoid him (checking he was OK) and carry on.

Lap 2 flowed better and I was still feeling pretty strong, but by lap 3 my legs were starting to fade a little.  This wasn't helped by drive-train issues!  While prepping the bike on Saturday I'd spotted a jockey wheel that was close to wearing away completely and had swapped it for a spare, but on my last few rides and even on the morning's pre-ride there had been no other problems.  However...  Once or twice during the early laps, if I tried to put the power down in a smaller cassette ring the chain would jump; as the race went on this got more and more frequent :-(

A jockey wheel that's seen better days

 By lap 4 my body was whimpering, but I'd worked out that even if I backed off a little I should still be able to make it round for a 5th lap and have recovered a little for a final push.

As the ground warmed up, the course changed considerably!  Bits that had been slippery to begin with had formed a dry line by the end, but the previously frozen sections became slippery and very wet.

Lap 5 felt good, but the lap times show I was actually a minute slower than lap 4... How does that work?!?!

I was aiming for a top 20 slot but ended up 21st of 87, 2hr Male Senior (missing out on 20th by 2s to someone who'd wheel-sucked me with a team mate for for most of lap 5 - mutter mutter), so not too far off.

After the first 2 rounds I was sitting in 10th place overall, so it'll be interesting to see how much damage this has done ahead of Rnd4.

I definitely noticed my singletrack handling wasn't as good as it usually is, I find AW is great for speed training, but I definitely need to spend more time in the forest getting my single-track handling back up to scratch!

Photo by Kevin Shaw

Thetford Winter Series 2014/2015 - Round 2

Round 2 : Brandon FR6 : 7th December
After a few days of being knocked out by a lurgy from hell I was feeling well enough to race, but still had sinuses full of gunge...  It had rained lightly off and on all the way to Brandon but was forecast to be nothing worse than a few spots during the race.
The pre-ride made it clear that my body was lacking power; I was reasonably quick on the flat, but had no oomph up the climbs.  Chatted to Ady before the race and he suggested riding to heart rate rather than speed, so decided to give that a try.
I was gridded, but was soon passed by plenty of riders as I struggled to keep the pace up and found a queue at the first section of single-track.  Around 2/3rds of the way around lap one a 15min sleety downpour soaked me through and froze me to the bone.  The ground churned up and I plodded on for 4 laps, occasionally finding bursts of power but mostly just trying to keep a HR of approx 160-165.
I ended up 21st of 86.  I'd usually be very pleased with that when well, so to be comfortably within the top 30 (gridding place) when poorly was great.

T'Tour de Yorkshire

When it was announced that this year's Grand Depart would be taking place in Yorkshire I knew I'd have to make a trip back there to see it.  While I'm not one for watching sporting events on TV, I love a live spectacle and couldn't miss seeing the worlds biggest cycling event taking place in the county I grew up in.

My original rough plan had been to head up on Friday after work with a mate and stay at my folks over the weekend, riding out to the Dales on the Saturday and over to York on the Sunday to see bits both stages.  But as time went on it became apparent that a full weekend wouldn't be possible for various reasons.  One of the main reasons being that I was attending the Black Sabbath, Soundgarden and Faith No More gig in Hyde Park on the Friday.

The new plan became to head out early on Saturday, leave the car in Selby, ride over to see the early part of the race near Leeds, then head on to Harrogate in time for the finish and then drive home the same day.

The gig was excellent, much beer was drunk (despite the prices) and I was tucked up in bed around 12:45.  My alarm went off at 5:30 and my mate Steve picked me up at 5:45.  The roads were clear at that time of day and we got to Selby just before 9.  It was raining pretty hard for much of the journey but cleared up about 15miles out.
We said our hellos, got changed, unpacked the bikes and were on the road for 9:30.

I didn't fully discover the joys of cycling till later in life so haven't properly explored the roads from back home and was looking forward to trying some of them out.  But, as we were against the clock I ditched the plan to take the scenic route through the countryside and we headed out on the busier main roads instead.

Initially I'd suggested riding approx 25 miles to Harewood House, however once we realised how busy it would be there we revised the plan to head to Pool in Warfedale instead.  It's not that much further away and I imagined it would be less busy than Harewood.  I'd plotted a route and uploaded it to my Garmin, although I knew most of the initial part of the journey very well.  My grandparents lived on the outskirts of Leeds, not too far from where we were headed; as a kid this seemed impossibly far away so the idea of biking it was appealing.

As we set off the roads were still wet but the weather stayed dry, however we were riding into a headwind all the way out.  Neither of us felt on form, the early start taking it's toll and we seemed to be riding up a gradual incline the whole way.

Around Moortown the road was blocked; the A61 was being used for the ride out from Leeds to Harewood House and crowds had already massed at the roundabout.  We got off and weaved our way through the narrow path.  Once through, the road was closed to motor vehicles and we found we were able to ride the wrong way along the dual-laned A6120.  From here we deviated from roads I knew and headed along the country lanes between Adel and Eccup Reservoir towards Bramhope.  From here we had brilliant views across Warfedale and finally had a speedy descent into the dale towards Pool.

We'd had no real idea what we'd do when we got there but assumed we'd be struggling to see over the crowds already massed at the railings.  As we arrived we were greeted by a "Race Maker" marshall who asked if we fancied riding on the course and then finding a spot to watch from a little further through the town.  A combination tiredness and surprise meant we didn't really register what he'd said at first but once it dawned on us we jumped at the chance.  He parted the barriers for us and we set off.

The streets were lined with spectators and as we sped along they were cheering us on; they clearly knew we weren't competitors but were getting into the spirit of things and it was a brilliant experience, especially as it was all completely unexpected.

We passed through Pool and found an area where the crowds had thinned out where we set up and waited for the pack.  We spent about 40 mins here soaking up the atmosphere, watching the Red Arrows flying over and refuelling.

A small lead bunch passed first, followed a minute later by the remaining 200ish riders.

Once they'd passed we rode up and down the stretch looking at all the chalk messages spectators had written for the riders.

We headed back into Pool then followed the GPS route out towards Harrogate.  We weren't the only ones with this plan and even though I'd taken us along a little country lane the road was heaving with bikes and cars. It was only 8-10 miles to Harrogate, but those 8-10 miles were were mostly straight up and we were worryingly low on spare gears at some points.  We refuelled again on the outskirts of Harrogate, before heading in and exploring the event.


The main event village was out of bounds as you couldn't take bikes in and we weren't prepared to leave them while we went in, but there was still lots to see.  All the team coaches were parked up and crowds were milling about everywhere, the one thing we couldn't find was the finish!  As we were discussing it a really helpful bloke overheard us and helped us work out where it was an how to get there.

Once again there was much fighting our way through crowds but we eventually found a way onto the course.

We rode the final mile or so several times, until the marshals shouted that we needed to clear the course ready for the race to come through.

We found a spot, by a dry stone wall, on a bend with a slight incline leading into Harrogate which seemed like a good spot to spectate and then we waited...

We'd got here with plenty of time to spare, and spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sun waiting for the competitors.

First came the carnival floats (aka advertisers) and at one point I was nearly run over by some speeding McCain Oven chips and a Fruit Shoot car!

 

Eventually the pack came into view... 

I snapped away like mad with my camera-phone and was lucky enough to capture a shot of Cavendish being led out by his team mates (he's the 5th one back with the black over shoes)!

After the riders had passed we headed after them into Harrogate, along with hundreds of other spectators.

Even though it was only a couple of miles, it took around 45 mins to get through Harrogate and out the other side, we decided there was little point staying for the ceremony as we'd not get close and time was ticking on.  We finally had some reward from the morning's headwind and absolutely flew the 15 miles from Harrogate, through Knaresborough and on to York.












After a quick sightseeing tour of the city and a recce of where the following day's ride would be starting we left York and wound our tired legs on to Selby.

We called in at Mr C's chippy and then on to my folks', after a quick refuel we headed back home, arriving around 11:30pm.


The full route can be seen here; http://app.strava.com/activities/162160639

Wattisham Triathlon 2014

Written long after the event so only highlights.

Beforehand
Training had gone well.  Extra core work (mainly planking) to attempt to combat diaphragm cramps I'd previously had on the run.

Swim
Was overtaken on the 7th length of the swim - I'd put an accurate swim time so was very surprised when this happened!  This gave me some focus for the rest of the event and helped me to push on when I was flagging.

Bike
On the ride I caught the bloke who passed me and we swapped places several times.  I eventually kept in front and got back and out of transition about 30-60s ahead of him.  This was the first time I'd used tri-bars in an event, they definitely worked well and I'll use them again.
Last year I'd been held up on the ride by the Police helicopter taking off so was happy not to have a repeat of that this year!

Run
The run went the best it ever has in a Tri.  No repeat of the diaphragm cramps I usually get and I was able to run well.  The bloke who overtook me in the swim passed me about a 1/4 of the way around the run, but as he was in Hadleigh Hare's running club gear it was to be expected that this would be his strongest discipline.

In the end I came 15th overall, 5th in age cat!.  Best result I've ever had by quite some margin!

Swim + T1: 00:06:39
Bike + T2: 00:35:12
Run: 00:19:51

Total: 01:01:42

Family came to spectate this year (Mum, Dad, Wife and daughter) this is the only event of mine that any of them have ever been to!

Thetford Winter Series 2013/2014

Round 1: 3rd Nov
31st of 113

Round 2 : 1st 
Didn't race as went to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland the day before

Round 3 : 26th Jan
22nd of 100

Round 4 : 23rd Feb
34th of 94

Ride London 100 - 2013

Having registered for the RL100 ballot many months in advance, various administration issues had left me guessing as to whether I had actually been successful in gaining a place.  I'd been sent an email saying I was in but I'd not received the welcome packs or other items I knew other people had been sent.  The online registration site was suitably vague, so it was with much relief that I received final confirmation with a week or so to go! 

Given the lack of pre-event organisation I was sceptical about how well the event would go on the day... 

As a bit of background the event involves a 100 mile closed road circuit beginning in London, venturing out into the Surrey hills before returning you to the sights of London.  With 20,000 participants it involves an early start (first waves leaving at 6am and the final ones around 8am), my start time had been designated as 7:17am, so the prospect of the roads being jammed with 10,000+ slower riders ahead of me also didn't appeal greatly.

As there was no way I could get to London for a 6:15am start (you had to arrive 1hr before your start time) I'd arranged to stay with my mate Eric the night before.  He lives in West London which would have still been hard to get to the start (Olympic Park in Stratford,  East London) but better than starting from Suffolk.  Fortunately he'd managed to wangle the loan of his company's central London flat for us to use the night before!  This put us by Tower Bridge with only a couple of miles to get to the start -  HERO!

Approaching Olympic Park

So, at 5:45am on the Saturday morning I left the flat and headed east, looking for other cyclists.  I found a group and tagged along with them to the Olympic Park.  Once there the setup was very impressive.  Riders had been grouped into Black Groups and Blue Groups and within those groups were around 20 alphabetised waves of 500 cyclists, I was in Black wave 'M'.  An hour before the start were ushered into our designated gateway and as time passed we were gradually funnelled nearer to the start line.
By chance I found myself at the front of my wave, as they counted down to our start I was very ware of the fact that there were 500 people lined up behind me!

At the start line - looking ahead.

At the start line - looking back...

We'd been advised to set of steadily as the timing didn't actually start will 1mile down the road, I decided to do as I was told and expected people to be flying past me but as I rode gently along no one passed.  A look over my shoulder showed me that I was heading up possibly the longest peloton of my life! 
The start took us along a short minor road then the wrong way around a roundabout and up onto the A12 dual carriageway.  It was exceedingly surreal to be riding the wrong way down a completely closed A12 at 7am, especially when leading out a 500 person-strong "wave".  Soon I was passed by various riders and several of us formed a pack as we swooped through various inner-city tunnels at silly speeds, with lots of us whooping and howling to create echoes.

Despite the early start lots of people were out on the streets cheering us on. My start time was about halfway through the phased start and my fears that the roads would already be rammed were unfounded as there was mostly plenty of space. In fact most people naturally gravitated to the left hand lane(s) leaving the oncoming lanes clear much of the time.

Once past the sights of London, the Surrey lanes were nice change of scenery.  I made my first stop at the 50mile mark, the 'hubs' were very well organised with plenty of free cereal bars, snacks and electrolytes - it was here that I first bumped into a fellow TROG, Mark, we had a quick chat and then went our separate ways.

After a few more miles Leith Hill was in the way - this was undoubtedly the toughest challenge of the day.  The road is steep, narrow,  with tight bends and has several false peaks,  you'd come over a crest only to find it went up again!  There were lots of strugglers on the hill, all spread across both lanes, so trying to keep momentum and pass other riders was hard work!  Coming down the other side was exceedingly fast and dodging other riders was again proving challenging, it doesn't bare thinking about what would happen if either of us misjudged things. 

A little further on, Box Hill was less of a challenge than I'd feared, and It was on the climb along here that I met Mark for the 2nd time. Although  Box Hill climbs for quite a distance, it's recently been resurfaced and compared to Leith it was pretty straightforward to find a comfortable gear and wind your way up - the view from the top was breathtaking.

My next stop was at 80 miles where I refilled my bottles and got quickly back under-way.

The final run into London was very nice, after flying along the Embankment you pass Westminster, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square then through Admiralty Arch, along the Mall towards Buck house.  I particularly enjoyed "Dangerzone" from Top Gun blaring out as I crossed the line.

My official time inc both stops was 5hrs 19mins and my GPS shows I averaged 19.8mph, which I'm exceedingly chuffed with. 

Can heartily recommend the event, get your names down for next year's ballot!

Thetford Summer Enduro 2013

On the run up to the Summer Enduro the weather had been very dry, but the night before it had rained pretty hard.  I had some tyre choice concerns but stuck with my Racing Ralfs which ended up being a good decision as, if anything, the course could have done with more rain and was tyre deep with dusty earth in loads of places!

This time I had entered in the 10hr pairs race with my mate Stu, after a quick chat we decided I'd go off first and we'd alternate laps from there on.  Stu claimed he'd not had chance to get as much training in as he'd have liked,  but he certainly seemed quick enough to me :-) 

- Lap 1 - I got a good start from the 2nd row and managed not to be overtaken too much.
- Lap 3 - I'm not sure why but this lap contained many silly mistakes, including overshooting corners and in one case missing an arrow and going about 50yards off the course!  Despite this I still managed a decent enough time.
- Lap 5 - There were fewer silly mistakes this time, however halfway around the course I clipped a root while overtaking someone and I hit the ground pretty hard.  I jumped back on the bike and pretended I wasn't hurting as much as I was.  Shortly afterwards I was caught by my mate Winger who was soloing and he "beasted" me back to the changeover with cries of "Come on ya faggot,  get a move on" which helped get another good time in :-D
- Lap 7 - This went OK but a bit slower, the pain in my side was starting to surface.
- Lap 9 - Can only be summed up by the word agony.  It was clear I'd hurt a rib in my fall (as well as scraping the skin off my hip) and the adrenaline (or whatever had kept me going that long) had worn off...  At the change-over I told Stu that this would probably be my last lap.

After talking with the other GRT guys I visited the first-aiders and got doped up with pain-killers and ice-packs and was advised to retire, which I fully planned to do, until...  Just before Stu was due back in, the pain-killers kicked in so I thought I'd see how another lap went...

Lap 11 - Unsurprisingly I was off the pace of the previous laps but only by a few mins and the pain was bearable.
Lap 13 - Pretty much a copy of lap 11...

Stu got in another lap, but it was clear another one wouldn't quite be within the cut-off time limit (I'd already decided I'd done myself enough damage and had got changed) so we called it a day at 14 laps.

Until Lap 6 we were battling for 6th/7th place but the lost time left us in 10th which, all things considered, I'm very happy with 

Mike and Paddy got a cracking 3rd place in the same cat, and the various GRT teams were pretty much all over the rest of the podium with very convincing wins for Lewis, Wingnut and Ady and Carl in their cats.

Many thanks to the GRT boys and girls for their help, banter, support and pain killers...

All in all a "cracking" day...

TimeLaps results linked here;
http://www.timelaps.co.uk/assets/uploads/Thetford%20Summer%20Enduro%202013.pdf

There and back again - An idiot's tale...

My latest bout of cycling nonsense was to ride from my in-laws house in deepest, darkest Lincolnshire to my parents in North Yorkshire and then back again the next day.

To find my way I'd plotted the route into my GPS (Garmin Edge 500) which only offers very basic navigation (a "join the dots" type system that beeps if it senses you've missed a GPS way-mark).  The route was estimated to be about 76miles each way and at an avg speed of 16mph should take between 4.5 and 5 hours.

Given the Arctic spring we've had this year I was avidly watching the weekend's forecast, which ultimately ended up being dry, bright, cold and head-windy.  On the Friday night, Lily had missed the point of the trip a little (if there actually was one) and asked whether I would drive there instead if it was raining :)

Around 7:20am on Saturday morning I set off on my road bike with a rucksack of essentials and wearing nowhere near enough layers of clothing - although it was about 2 degrees at the time it was supposed to be nearer 10 later in the morning.

I've always been of the opinion that Lincolnshire is so flat that it makes Suffolk look like the Alps, unfortunately that's only true outside of the Lincolnshire Wolds!  Admittedly there's nothing there to rival Alpe-d'Huez but my legs were soon woken up!

I'd planned to have only one rest and refuel stop which would be at the Humber Bridge (just over half way) and to regularly snack while riding to keep me going.  The Garmin got me close to the Humber Bridge with minimal difficulty, but once in the urban metropolis of Barton-on-Humber I started to discover the flaws of its basic navigation.  While it's fine through the open countryside it's hard to decipher when there are multiple turnings.  For instance it will show that you need to turn left, however when there are 3 left turns up ahead it doesn't make it obvious which one to take.  Also, the Garmin seemed to think I'd be able to use the service shafts inside the bridge supports (or scale them like Spiderman) and access the bridge that way.  Having ignored it's frantic beeping and "OFF COURSE" messages I managed to find my way to the cycle path that crosses over it.

There...

Once over the bridge I had numerous more wrong turns and became more and more frustrated with various daft Garmin design decisions.  In fact here's some suggestions for Mr Garmin's design team;

• If you detect that I'm off course, don't blank the screen and replace the route with an "Off Course!" message!  At the very least leave the route there, and if possible place an indicator showing where I am in relation to it.
• Also, you could draw the additional GPS points you've logged since I veered off course so I can easily retrace them.
• Trying to animate things on an LCD screen doesn't work well at all, the refresh rate isn't up to it.  All I end up seeing is the route flashing on and off as I'm trying to work out which exit to take from a roundabout.
• When I've plotted a course you could identify where junctions are then look at other nearby junctions and add them as markers on the screen as features to help me navigate by.

The Garmin also has a ghost rider feature, this rides the course at your estimated average speed so you can see how far ahead or behind you are.  Over the course of the ride we became enemies.
I'd accidentally plotted a bridleway, right at the start of the course.  I couldn't pass that on my road bike, so right from the off he had a 2mile advantage.  I'd managed to regain that distance by Barton-on-Humber, but while I'd maintained a higher average than him he never went off course so would overtake me every time I did.  I regularly accused the cheating little sod of deliberately making the course changes vague so he could gain an advantage.  Needless to say the little swine beat me to the finish - by just under 2 miles...
I like to think that, as the miles wound endlessly on, this little game helped to keep me sane but the evidence of the previous paragraph suggests otherwise.

The last 20miles to Selby were very hard psychologically.  I've always thought of Gilberdyke and Howden as being quite close to Selby, but that stretch of road just went on and on and on for ever.  Each time I looked at the trip computer, the distance didn't seem to have changed - something else I accused the ghost rider of tampering with.
I regularly ride 3/4s of this distance and have ridden much further so I was surprised at how hard I'd found it, I suspect it's because I'm usually on familiar roads and riding with other people.

I reached my parents' at 12:30 and a gigantic Mr C's fish and chips followed by a Doubtfires ice-cream made everything better again.  The prospect of having to ride back the next day wasn't very appealing though; my legs were feeling drained and my back-side was very aware of the lack of padding in my cycling shorts.

For the return journey I'd decided to take more rest breaks and fluids, as well as to take it at a more steady pace rather than trying to get there as quick as possible - this time I'd be starting with the flat terrain and ending with the Wolds...

I set out around 7:45am on Sunday and despite taking it steady I was constantly aware that my leg muscles weren't wanting to do anything.  Despite that, the distances didn't seem as ridiculously long as yesterday - I think that now I was more familiar with what was coming my expectations were more realistic.
As is the way with these things, the wind had turned overnight so I had a headwind again!  Fortunately it was little more than a breeze this time.

And back again...

Rather than trying to ride right through, I took 3 or 4 short breaks and one longer one where I refilled my bottles - I'd stayed pretty much neck and neck with the Ghost Rider but I had to take a mile or so detour into Caistor for the bottle refill where I lost him and never caught him back up - damn him!

By the time I'd crossed the Humber my leg muscles had warmed up and although I wasn't exactly powering up the hills none of them stopped me in my tracks and I made it back to Aby around 1:15pm.

The routes and stats are here;
Aby to Selby: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/173679935/234886

• Moving Time: 4hrs 54mins 21secs
• Total Time: 5hrs 09mins 49secs

Selby to Aby: http://www.endomondo.com/workouts/174100023/234886

• Moving Time: 4hrs 49mins 45secs
• Total Time: 5hrs 22mins 00secs

In the end there wasn't a lot in it time and speed-wise and the return leg only took 10-15 mins longer (including rests) so I'm pretty pleased with that.

Despite all my grumblings about the Garmin, it's a stunning bit of kit and I didn't need to resort to a real map once, I just feel they've made several stupid design decisions that could be very easily improved on.

Thetford Dusk Til Dawn 2012

I've ridden D2D 3 times before but usually with a view to have fun rather than properly race. This year I entered as a team of 2 with my mate Steve (Stumpy on here) who I've done a lot of riding with lately and we were keen to do as well as we could but realistically we had no aspirations of troubling the podium or even being anywhere near it.

The weather had been fairly poor in the days leading up to the race and I wasn't looking forward to riding in the rain again (2008 and 2010), but on the day the rain cleared around 7am and it stayed dry and bright. We arrived at High Lodge around 5:30pm, too late to have a proper pre-ride but we got signed in and had a quick spin over the first couple of sections of the course. The rain had left a fair bit of mud, but there was considerably more fire-road than usual so hopefully it would hold up better.
I was volunteered to do the opening lap so queued up on the start line with Andy1 at around 7:30pm in the freezing cold. On the lead out section I managed to stick to Ady's wheel but misted up lenses caused me to faff my way through the first section of singletrack and he left me for dust, erm mud...
The "simple" course set-up meant I didn't see any of the queuing problems that there's been in previous years and my Racing Ralphs managed to cope pretty well through the mud (other than in one section that I doubt will dry up again this century).

I tried to eek 2 laps out of my batteries but unfortunately they both packed in about 2/3rds of the way through lap 2 meaning my Hope Twin was blinking on low power mode and my Fenix helmet light had dropped to it's dimmest setting. Somehow I managed keep riding with low light levels and despite the problems the lap-times show I set the overall fastest lap time for my category
I'd borrowed 2 spare Hope batteries from a mate, so with mine now on charge I used one of his for my 3rd lap, unfortunately it had been sat doing nothing for ages and it also died after about 20mins (despite me charging it the night before) and I had to survive on the 180 lumen helmet light alone!
The following laps were battery-problem-free but for the last mile or so of lap 4 I started to suffer cramp in my quads; a quick massage afterwards helped but the rest of my race was a balance between pushing on and fighting back cramping muscles.

Both me and Steve were managing approx 45-60min lap times which was just long enough in the pits to eat, sort out fresh clothes and batteries, service the bike and then wait for the next turn. The weather stayed dry but it was much colder than I'd anticipated fortunately the GRT boys and girls had a gas heater which was a god-send.
Unfortunately after my fourth lap I lost the ability to add up and somehow overestimated how much time I had by about 15mins and Steve had to come and find me and kick me back out onto the course...

Through the night we managed 7 laps each and we were constantly swapping between 6th and 7th place (of around 50 teams in our category). I made it back from my final lap at around 7:45am to find we'd dropped back to 7th. Steve went out for one final lap and he managed to bump us back up to 6th!

I'm exceedingly chuffed to have had a top 10 finish, it's by far my best result and is much better than we had expected we'd do.

Many thanks to all the TROG and GRT boys and girls for the hospitality, banter and support and to TMTBR for putting on another cracking event. And well done to all the others for some excellent results

Trinity Park Criterion Races 2012

Having bought a road bike for the Triathlon I thought I'd better get some more use out of it.

I was regularly riding with my mate Steve who mentioned the 'Crit races' at Trinity Park.  This is a fast paced, 30minute (novice class) closed circuit race series held over 6 week - there is also a 1hr (pro class) option for those who are sufficiently masochistic.

Having missed the 1st week I made my debut at round 2.  By "made my debut" I mean I managed to stay with the pack on the start line but struggled to stay with them for much longer...

The courses are 1.5 to 2 miles long and consist of many 90 degree bends with 100m or so between them and to keep with the pack you need to permanently sprint!  So for 30mins you sprint, brake, sprint, brake, sprint, brake...  If you lose the pack, you lose the 'tow' effect that it gives off, making it even harder to catch back up.

Round 2
For my 1st attempt I managed 7 laps, I stuck with the pack for a couple of them, but then fell away and limped over the line.  As "novices" go, these are pretty skilful! Only the 1st 20 people get their places recorded so I've no idea of my final position.
Endomondo

Round 3
At round 3 a lead pack and follow up pack formed, I managed to stay with the latter and I think I only just missed out on a ranked position.
At the end of the race my body was struggling, my muscles wouldn't work any more and I was struggling to breath.  I ended up laying down in the car park for a few minutes while I recovered.  I don't think I've ever pushed myself that hard before or since!
Endomondo

I missed rounds 4 and 5 but returned for the final.  

Round 6
Having picked up a feel for what was involved at round 2 I had high hopes (well, I thought I might just be able to scrape into the top 20), however I lost the pack on the 2nd lap from the end and then punctured on the penultimate lap, not quite the blaze of glory I'd hoped to go out in... 
Endomondo

One characteristic of the crit races is that the pack travels so close together, so quickly and around such tight fast bends, that crashes are almost inevitable.  When they happen they're on hard tarmac and a "domino rally" type effect takes out several riders at once.
I saw 2 crashes at the final round.  In the first - the worst of the 2 - someone appeared to take the 1st corner too wide then swung back in and collided with the bloke right in front of me. I managed to avoid it somehow, but it looked pretty painful for those involved. From chatting to one of the blokes afterwards (the one who got hit) it sounded like quite an expensive crash as well (Di2 and carbon rims etc) he was also draping a towel over his shoulder so that he didn't get blood on his car seats!
On the 2nd one, the pack were going around one of the last couple of corners and it seems the tarmac was just too slippery and, as he leant right over, one guy on the outside just slid sideways off the track fortunately managing not to take anyone with him.

I enjoyed the rounds I did.  It opened my eyes to a totally different style of racing and gave me a greater appreciation at how hard the faster racers really are pushing themselves.

Dunwich Dynamo 2012

Back in 2009 I did the Dunwich Dynamo for the first time then did it again in 2010.  It's a 120 mile ride, through the night, from Hackney in east London to the Suffolk coast.


I've done the "Dun Run" 3 times now and this was definitely my favourite. My first was at a very steady pace and was enjoyable but hard work, my aim was just to get there.
Three years ago I had wanted to break all known land-speed records getting there, but I left my legs at Needham Lakes after an overly-long rest stop.
This time I was keen to do as well as possible; the loose plan was to take it steady out of London and then press on after that, with minimal stops and aiming for an 18mph average speed.  Also I was travelling light this time around, no bags or excess kit, all I was carrying was;

• a couple of bottles of energy drink and a GPS fitted to the bike
• a spare inner-tube and multitool in my saddle-bag
• 4 energy bars, 4 energy gels, some Haribo jelly strawberries, a tiny waterproof jacket and my phone in my jersey pockets.

After the usual banter and bike-ogling in the park I set of with my mate Steve at 20:15.

• As we left the traffic lights, junctions and overcrowded roads of London we were averaging about 13mph.
• We'd only been on the road 20mins when Steve asked me for the direction sheet, which I no longer seemed to have.  D'oh...  Never mind, there's usually plenty of people around to follow and we roughly know the route anyway.
• We got to the Sible Hedingham feed stop at about 23:20 (approx 50miles) and there were only 20 or 30 other people there at that time.  Previously when we've got there it's been heaving with people and bikes - attempting to buy food there has been near impossible.
• We spent 20-30mins having a quick caffeine, flapjack and banana refuel.

The stretch from Sudbury to Needham was my favourite, we were in a pack of about 10-15 people and combined with the strong tail-wind we were, seemingly effortlessly, flying along!  It was along here that I started to notice an ominous rattle but chose to ignore it...

We reached the rest stop in Gosbeck at around 01:30 (approx 90miles) and had another 20-30min break, opting for coffee, mars bars and bacon buttys for fuel this time.  At this point the GPS showed that we were averaging our target of 18mph!
As I jumped back on the bike the rattle was very noticeable and I spotted that a spoke in my back wheel had snapped at the rim!  On closer inspection I spotted that the one next to it had gone at the hub as well!  Due to travelling light I'd not packed a spoke key, any spare spokes or a truing stand (ho ho) so opted to snip them off with some borrowed wire cutters!


I wasn't happy to keep riding at the same pace in case any more spokes snapped or the wheel buckled beyond a ridable level so we dialled it back a little. The remaining 20-30 miles were frustrating as we were both still feeling fit but, as I was planning on biking back to Ipswich too, I definitely wanted the wheel to survive.

The wheel developed a slight but noticable buckle around the Bruisyard/Peasenhall area but it wasn't bad enough to make it unridable.

We reached Dunwich around 3:30, managing to not only beat the sunrise but also the staff at the cafe too!  Our final stats were, 7hrs 19mins total time, 6hrs 21mins riding time and a 17.5mph average speed (route and stats are here).  I'd estimate that the wheel cost us 10-20mins.

There were probably 40 people milling around the car park (rather than the 100-200 when I usually get there) but only 10 or so in the queue for the cafe so we joined the queue and waited for it to open at 4am; it's just as well that we had backed off the pace a bit as we'd have been waiting even longer otherwise ;)



Due to the dodgy wheel I wasn't sure whether to bike back or not, as I had the option of a lift if I waited around. I decided to chance it, working on the theory that my lift would probably be willing to do a detour if the worst happened

One full English breakfast later I slackened off my rear brake to stop the buckled rim from rubbing against the blocks and at 04:30 we started the 30 miles back to Ipswich.  It took just over 2 hours to get back (14.6mph average) where I found my garden gate bolted from the inside meaning that I couldn't get in...

All in all, I really enjoyed the event and am very pleased with the result despite the frustration of the wheel, but I think next time needs to be a leisurely attempt, making the most of the various pub and burger stops along the way :)