Being seven months into the year (but feeling five months behind this year) is normally a time I’m thinking the season is coming to an end in the next few months and it’s a time to look back and tick off the achievements of the season. Not this year though, it seems the first half has been full of kicks in the teeth and endless frustrations to which I’ve bored myself moaning about so god knows what others have thought.
Negatives are slowly turning into positives and the mind-set has changed from getting frustrated to finding solutions and rather than asking why something is going wrong it’s turned to looking for how it can be put right.
I had my only chance so far this year to lower my 50 Pbon the course I had set it on last year, I knew I was stronger than last year and an all-round better tester but that didn’t seem to be coming out on race day. Afterlooking at some pics from a previous race it was pretty obvious we had to change things, and looking at the ones from the 100 we nailed it.
Getting my kit ready at the start I was confident that today fortunes would change and the racing would start matching the training, warm up started and my power meter didn’t want to sync with the Garmin and 10 minutes of it searching for it pressing the search button desperately hoping it would find it just wasn’t happening , this put me in my nightmare position of pacing myself over a distance I very rarely ride ,but hey I was there and my start time was 2 mins away so it was on with the show.
The first miles where a constant head battle, was I going to fast or to slow, was I going to blow up with 20 miles left to go or do the last 10 at 25 pace as I had taken the start to steady. I had the super-fast distance man Tejvan as my minute man so it gave me a reference point at the 21mile turn , the return leg was rapid and harder to judge on pace than the headwind, it would be fast for everyone so I knew I just had to keep the speed up, the dog leg on the return slowed things down abit with the tough headwind section that felt a ton worse after such a fast 10 miles before, plus it was bumpy which saw my only water bottle take flight along the road with around 12 miles to go, of the final roundabout I could see my current pb getting ever closer but knew I had a chance if I could just keep it going , I really buried myself the last mile and rolled across the line in 1:43:45 knocking over 45 seconds off my pb on a day that had slower conditions than the year before and I had self-paced so I was buzzing. The position changes felt better but I got off the bike and I could hardly walk, I felt like I had done ten times the mileage and the pain around my sit bone and glutes was horrendous and left me fearing the 100 miles that was to come the week after.
The 100 had been in the back of my mind for a long time, it was a national event so a good turn out with the fast boys was expected and the atmosphere was going to be awesome, my longest ride on a road bike being 65 miles and the pain from the 50 the week before was playing on my mind abit, I had made a few changes since the 50 and was desperately hoping it would pay off.
After forgetting my assos cream before the 50 I left my self a note and even stuck it right on the top of my kit bag knowing a 100 miles without was a very bad idea but I still managed to get to the start line before remembering I forgot to use it, this was going to hurt .but at least I remembered to wear my super cool Nopinz proto-type aero calf guards , super trick ,thanks Blake .
I set off just thinking about keeping it steady , my water bottle cage between the extensions was adamant it didn’t really want to hold a bottle today so any time I came out of position ( my arms where basically holding it in ) I had to hold onto it with one hand to stop it flying away ( this was not the race to go thirsty ) .
On the second lap of four I passed one of the seeded riders which firstly made me think have I gone out to fast but then I thought hell no I feel good so let’s keep it going.
I was well into my pace with 50 miles gone, I was sticking well to James nutrition plan and my pace was below what we had targeted for power but my speed was around what I was aiming for so I went with remembering I had never rode even close to this distance so it could all go horribly wrong if I got too keen to early.
75 miles was the point it started to really bite, I was holding pace and power well but it was becoming a real fight.
The rain had been forecast for the latter stages but I was hoping and praying it would stay off. 82 miles and the last lap to go , just coming into the turn it was like someone stole the sun and the roads where lined with powerful wind machines blowing rain as hard as it could straight into your face , it was like the ending of I’m a celebrity get me out of here when they had to try and get to the end of the course with their stars without getting blown or washed away, it wasn’t like it was a few spots of rain then it got harder it was instant and flat out. The turn to get to the last lap is a big one two roundabouts and a few lane changes and it was scary. Getting back onto the dc after tip toeing around the turn I could see the Avg speed dropping and knew I had to really push to crawl it back. The only thing that kept me going was the fact I could say I done it, I rode a 100 and I wouldn’t have to do it again, whilst desperately hoping a marshal would pop out at the next roundabout and say they had called it a day.
I lost a fair bit of time on those last 18 miles fromcombination of things really , I got really cold and wet and cramped bad in my legs and it really got worse as soon as the roads where anything but downhill or pan flat my avg was holding and as the 100 mile mark clicked on the Garmin I still had 0.6 miles to go ( the course was slightly longer as if 100 isn’t enough for safety reasons ) I finished and trembled my way back to the car ,dumping the bike at the back doors I got in the car heating on full blast stuck in that position between having to get wet clothes off and trying desperately not to move so I didn’t cramp up. Looking at the Garmin I had clocked a 3:41:29 and amazingly managed to get a top 10 finish with 9th overall taking some impressive scalps and getting close to riders I thought would give me a right stuffing over the distance.it was probably the biggest learning event I’ve rode and I think I’ve got a lot more to get out at that distance, I could of pushed that extra few watts early on and if I hadn’t been such a chicken in the wet , if I didn’t cramp up bad in the cold , if I had got someone to pass up all my bottles instead of carrying 3 on the bike and a few other things but at the end of the day I rode far beyond what I thought I would so couldn’t be happier and I think we have found a good position to build on so double BOOM ! Plus I got to put some faces to names, sorry if I ignored anyone wondering around dazed after.
So looking back at the first 7 months ( I wanted to do 6 months but I’m abit behind so I’m late doing this one ) I’m trying to forget them to be honest in terms of racing results though some huge positives of grabbing two course pbs , open win , and a 50 pb plus a first 100 have all come at the tail end , it’s been a 7 months of change , new bikes , kit , sponsors , nutrition , weight , training , etc. etc. I guess I couldn’t expect everything to be spot on instantly when my whole approach to everything racing has changed but sometimes you have to go back to go forward.
I’m doing the podcast this week with mark http://cyclingtimetrialpodcast.libsyn.com/ part 2 of 3 so will be great to chat to him again about how everything has come on , and the blog passed 10,000 views last month so that was a great to see and as always very grateful for the views .
So where does that leave me know? positive is probably the best word, I know we still have a lot to do but il extend the season on now and try and make it a good one, we still have a lot of improvements to make and a ton of time to find but we are going down the right path rather than wondering around in the dark.
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