Friday 24 June 2011

Sometimes Things Just Work Out


A night shift, an early morning and a recce.

Work stuff happened to require a night shift on Thursday night which meant no night ride but with the 'sleep day' I could pop out for a ride.

As I'm leading a www.natsmtb.com ride on Sunday 10th July I thought a recce was in order of my planned ride around Longnor.


An early check on the night shift work proved all was fine.  With the bike in the car ready it was straight to Longnor via Starbucks.  10:30 ride start, round in 2hrs, but will be 3hrs plus with a big group.



This ride must be the most varied mtb ride eva!  Road climbs, grass, mud, swooping descents and extremely technical rock descents.  Most enjoyable.

Chip shop was open in Longnor when I got back to the car,so munched chips on the way home, followed by home made lemon drizzle cake.

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Original Source Mountain Mayhem 2011 - Team Half Fixed


This year Original Source Mountain Mayhem was brought to you by an awesome but hard course; A pain in the arse shower that went from cold dribble to cold spray to warm spray then off; repeat 'til cold and pissed off; and 5 collarbones, 1 leg and a KO!

We all arrived to camp on Friday afternoon.  Free on site camping means that there's loads of people at Mountain Mayhem.  LOADS!!!! We got a really good spot just across from the infamous Kenda Klimb and set up camp.


The course was available to test ride between 4 and 6 pm on friday but it was raining on and off and it didn't seem worth getting wet and muddy so we put the pasta on and had a beer.

The rear mud tyre was fitted first thing on Saturday morning, after lots of overnight rain.  Ratio changed to 32:15 fixed and out for a 10 min test run.  I didn't want to overdo it because of the dodgy leg.  All seemed fine and Simon had convinced me to start fixed and see how it went - this would end up being the right decision.

Race order agreed - Simon, Racey, Alex, Me

Strategy agreed - 2 sets of 1 lap each, 1 set of 2 laps each, 1 set of 1 lap to finish

Rider briefing at 11am and we explained the setup to our race virgin - Racey.  He was excited.

Simon had agreed to do the run - Le Mans start  (Al had a newly fixed knee and I did it last time!).


I was designated helper and bike indicator.  The run was 2.5km and Simon did it in 12mins (very good!) but he thinks that ruined his legs for nearly the whole race!



Back to the camp for me and a bacon sarnie to settle the pre-race nerves.  Followed by a lovely lemon drizzle cake made by the missus.

First lap nerves on in the handover area waiting for Al to come in.  In he comes and we're off!  Try to keep it steady, don't get too excited or go off too fast, remember this is an endurance race.  The leg injury grumbled to start with, a bit tight on lap 1.  The course was really hard!  Loads of climbing and some slippy sloppy downs.  Glad I put the mud tyre on. Over the bridge round and back in a good time - 1hr 5mins.



Back to camp for a pot noodle and more cake.  Cramming in the carbs to keep the fuel topped up.

Raring to go and onto lap 2.  Another steady consistent lap into the sunset 08:20-09:25.  The views were beautiful from the top of the course but when I pointed them out to other riders I just got a grunt!  Lap 2 the leg was achey and grumbling and I had some paracetamol overnight because it was acheing.  Pain in the arse shower before bed with a 4:40am alarm call.



Two ibuprofen and two paracetamol were downed with a coffee on the handover before the sunrise lap, just in case.  More grumbling from the leg on lap 3 but then it just seemed to ease on the double sunrise lap from 5:20am.  I was really looking forward to something to eat from half way through Lap 4, so I treated myself to a Latte and a HUGE danish pastry in the arena.  It was lovely!

On the way back from another fun lap and the danger of this business hits home.  It was horrible to hear over the tannoy "Please can Clare Miggins please go to the timing tent.  Her husband has had an accident on the course and we need to find her as soon as possible".  Some riders were hospitalised even before the start when riders were doing practice laps due to the slippery course.  All that training and organising and you don't even make it to the start.  I didn't mention any of this to the missus when I checked in.  We heard of 5 broken collarbones, 1 broken leg and a KO throughout the race.

More cake, bacon and tea before my final lap.  Timings meant I would be doing the final glory lap into the arena.  The weather had been dry and windy on saturday morning and the course was rapidly drying out.  I flew round the last lap!  Nailed all the climbs.  Loving the ups and keeping the downs smooth as possible.  And keep looking forward to the next up!  I had a chat with the 2nd place Solo women - Lisa - who did some riding with us earlier this year and with Nick who was doing his first solo 24hr.  I was also accused on not eating enough pies!

I got round the last lap in 1:01:03 - the fastest lap of the team all race!

Results of the event are here



We were awesome!

We missed out on a podium 3rd place in the singlespeed teams by just 5 minutes - maybe next year!

Friday 10 June 2011

Weeks 10 and 11 - Mountain Mayhem's a coming...



Week 10 of The MM Training Plan said "ride lots and lots uphill and stuff"

I went on holiday instead, it was lovely.

I did lots of stretches and physio exercises while I was away but no riding.



Week 11 is my last week of proper training riding but the leg was still feeling a bit achy, so I took it steady.

Monday night I popped out on the road bike in the sun for an hour to check the leg; not bad.  Tuesday night for a Dogwalker night ride with Simon and Lady Alex.  The leg feels strong but a little achy again at times - bit depressing.

Thursday had been badly planned and required an evening peak site visit so no time for a night ride.  Rode a hilly commute there and back twice which went *OK*.  Still worried about the leg.

Friday - leg feels fine today - bizarre!

Hill reps and 20mins race pace done - feeling good and buoyant about the race.

Next week is a rest and preparation week - what ratio to choose?