Midlands XC - Round 1 - Hanchurch Woods

Agreeing to a night-out in Bradford on Friday was never going to be great preparation for a race on Sunday, but having taken the best part of 20 years to get back in touch with each other after leaving University in Newcastle upon Tyne, it was a pretty good reason, and I guess you have to try and have a life outside of work and riding bicycles.

By the time I got home on Saturday it was too late to go out for a spin so, to make-up for it, I set about breaking another golden rule of racing… don’t make major changes to your bike before the race! Well it wasn’t that much of a change really, I’d bought some Ergon grips with integrated bar-ends and had decided to swap the flat bars from my singlespeed onto the Maxlight (the fashion Police get quite upset if they spot Bar Ends on riser bars!) it was pretty much the same set-up so what could go wrong?

With the Vets race scheduled to start at 11am, Lizzie and I arrived at 9:30, enough time for a sighting lap and me to have a flap about something! The course was certainly challenging, 4.1 mile lap with plenty of climbing, lots of deep ruts, a very technical rooty section at the top of the first main climb, some fast descending (more roots) and a very fast, steep drop leading immediately into a very steep climb makes for an interesting lap, particularly with my new grips and bar ends that wont stop spinning on the ends of the bars!

Down at the start for 10:45, 60 of us old fellas all politely vying for a decent spot on the grid. I get middle of 2nd row and happy with that. The start is a brutal half mile of fire road uphill before turning hard left into a deeply rutted track past the feed station and on up the hill. I go off hard but try and temper the effort, we have 4 laps after all, and although I do get overtaken by a good few initially I’ve got most of them back by the time we hit the super techy roots at the top of the hill.

The first lap flies past and I sitting in about 10th spot, I take a bottle from Lizzie as I pass the feed zone and carry-on up the hill, its all going rather well… though the rooty section then into another technical rooted downhill, at the end of which there is an awkward off-camber left hand turn, over a steep wee drop onto a fire road, and I hit it way too fast to be able to maintain any degree of turn… the next I know  I’m half parted with the bike... and flying... awaiting the inevitable. It’s a hard landing, still tangled-up with the bike. The marshalls help me to my feet, a quick check over the bike and get back on. The bike (and me) still seem to be working ok, but I’m mad, all that hard work of the 1st lap wasted as I lose loads of places rolling about in the dirt! Worse still, Stevie, who has turned-up mainly to get one back for last weekend takes advantage and cruises through… I didn’t see him again until the end.
Its really hard to try and calm it all back down, put the crash to the back of my mind and get back into the zone, but I’m flustered and its telling, fluffing the roots on the last lap I go down again. Doesn’t hurt this time just annoys me… more!

I seemed to have been out on my own for a while and become conscious that someone is starting to close me down. I’m not one for looking round much, think that just makes you look a bit worried and give your pursuer a bit of a wind. At a short section of fire track this wiry old goat nips past, and there’s another chewing on my back tyre. There’s no way I’m going to let it go, if I can hang with him for the next couple of miles I can think of a strategy to beat him to the line. He fluffs a short techy climb but its more of a hindrance than a help. Coming into the final drag to the finish, I’ve got my plan, I’ve chosen the rut I want and need to make my move well out to get there before he does… it works well getting him and the guy in front to finish 21st of 59.

Its a result that I’m disappointed with, it really should have been top 15, but that’s racing I guess… Its still miles better than I did last year!

Link to techy bit below, had a bit of a misunderstanding with the Garmin over who was counting laps… (1, 2, 4 & 6 are the ones to look at).

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/30481663

Next up in The Dyfi enduro in Wales in a couple of weeks... so back to training miles.

CRC Marathon Builth Wells – Sun 11th April, 42 miles, 1779m Ascent

After Saturday's night race, by the time I’d had a massage, cooked some dinner, might have had a sneaky beer (!) it was after midnight. I didn’t sleep well at all, not helped by drinking gallons of Rego, tea etc after the race… For anyone that hasn’t done one of these, there are 3 distances to choose from, so effectively it’s a mass start for everyone competing that day. Same drill as Saturday with about 5ish miles on the road chasing the marshal’s van… but I just cant stay with it today, legs are spent and I know immediately that the order of the day is simply to “Suffer-like-a-dog”! Its not long, possibly on the first main climb that the cramps start, Quads, Hamstrings, calves the lot… then the lower back starts to cave-in, oh this is going to be a long day… just turn the pedals, its only pain! A wee while later one of my Tuesday night crew passed me. Steve is as much a competitive animal as I am, but I cant live with his pace, I mean he was in his bed last night while I was out racing… it’s a good excuse and one I decide I can comfortably live with. But its funny how fortunes turn in racing and an hour or so later I spotted him up ahead, off the bike and clearly struggling with his own cramping issues.

That’s it, my mind is set, there is no-way I’m going to let him get away again! Steve’s a demon down hill, but we manage to stick together for the last 3rd of the race right upto the final descent where he pulls a healthy gap. Dropping back onto the last few miles of road, I can see him a few hundred yards up the road and I’ve really got the bit in now, big ring engaged, back pain/legs cramps/fatigue all blotted-out and I’m surprised at how quickly I reel him in and pass him then just keep it going to the finish.

As for results well there’s a problem there, loads of riders missed a turn and cut-out a significant loop, which makes it all a bit of guess work, but of the 485 finishers I appear 146^th. I expect that in reality it was a top 100 finish, not a great result on its own, but reasonable effort after the previous evening. I went round the 42 mile course in 4hrs 9mins.

Link below for the data junkies…

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29753997

This Sunday sees the first round of the Midlands XC at Hanchurch Woods near Stoke, looking forward to that one, 4 laps of a 6ish mile course, its hilly and technical. Will report back next week when I can.

Exposure Lights Big Night Out – Sat 10th April, 25 miles, 972m Ascent

As is now usual for me, all thoughts of taking it easy and saving my legs for Sunday evaporated within about half a second of the gun! Although the start is theoretically neutralised for the first few miles on the road, what that really means is that we chase the race marshal’s van at speeds reaching 38mph, all jostling for a good spot in the draft! I was determined to stick with the lead group as far as I could, even managed a wee chat with Nick Craig the Scott Factory Team rider who went-on to finish 2^nd. Pretty soon we swung off the road and up the first long, long and really steep ascent. By now I had fully committed myself to just go-for-it and deal with the consequences on Sunday when it came, after all its just training really!!! I knew I was pushing a bit hard, but when I noticed that I had gone beyond my previously recorded Max heart rate and had been there for a few minutes, just confirming that this was going to be tough (184bpm… doesn’t that prove that I’m still really only 36?).

Over the top of the first climb and it was time to try and settle down, get the heart rate back into a reasonably sensible zone and concentrate on maintaining a decent pace. Descending at speed in the dark does, shall we say, require a bit of focus and we hit a short series of rocky steps that were fine until I realised all too late that my line took me off the steepest bit, with no time to pick the front wheel-up, relax and hope was the only option… luckily I was carrying enough speed to take me over it but any slower and I expect it would have been a very painful experience.

Splashed through a stream and smacked into the granny gear to get up a short but really steep climb, chin on the bars and front wheel lifting with every pedal stroke when there was an ominous “Ping” from the back followed by the “tinkle” that announced a broken spoke! Darn it… only one thing to do, whip the old one out, throw it away, crack-on and forget about it until the end of the race, it’s the first time I’ve broken a spoke, I guess it’s the price you pay for weight-weenieness!

Another screaming descent brought us back to the road and 6 miles of tarmac to the finish line. I caught and sat on the wheel of a guy who was going quite well, until we were passed by a chap pretending to be Fabian Cancellara… we ended-up with a group of 5 and were starting to work quite well, with about a mile to go it was my turn at the front and managed to stay there till we crossed the finish.

I was utterly spent! But finished in 2hrs 9mins and 31^st out of 205 finishers, probably my best result to date.

For the data/stats freaks the link below will take you to the data from my Garmin;

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29754004