Manx End to End Mountain bike enduro

One of the hardest races this year! I was very fortunate enough to be lent a tasty top of the range Giant Anthem XO from my sponsor and friend Paul at http://www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk/ for the event. The only problem was not borrowing it sooner to get used to it. It was nice to be back in my homeland for the first time in 2 years. The Isle of Man is a beautiful place, just a bit too quiet. Anyway on to the important stuff, the race. I must admit I did underestimate how hard it was going to be. After doing Ironman events and other long course races the thought of a 47 mile ride seemed easy. I would soon find out that the off road thing is quite hard. The massive climb of Ballacob was the first wake up call, its so different to the road bike as the cadence is crazy, spinning away and not getting anywhere, sit down and the front lifts up, stand up and the back wheel spins. The other issue for me was lack of off road experience when picking lines, I had my foot down loads of times and also in ruts I would often pick one too deep and hit the pedals on the side. On the descents though I was as crazy if not more crazy than the experienced mtb riders and was hammering down them with no concern for crashes. By the half way point though I was already suffering from cramp. The inside of my thighs were killing me, I put it down to the wider cranks/chainset as I had never had pain in these muscles on a bike before. I only had to stop once, I had a minor crash in some deep mud, got up and carried on about 1/2 a mile up the track and when I went to put my glasses on realised they had fell off in the crash. The track was too narrow to ride back down so I had to leave the bike and run down, I found the glasses and ran back up to the bike. There was no way on earth I was leaving my oakleys behind!! I think it cost me about 5 or 6 minutes but cheaper than funding a new pair of glasses. By the end of the race my upper body was feeling a bit beaten up from all the bumping around and as I crossed the line I felt relieved it was over. I finished in 3hrs and 37 mins, in 52nd place from a starting field of 970 riders which was a gold standard finish, gold cut off time was 4hrs which should give you an idea how hard the think the course is. My sister was on form and finished in 4hrs 17 mins to take 3rd lady in her age group and my dad was awesome having only taken up mountain biking a year ago at the age of 59 finished in 5hrs 59mins. The race will be shown on sky sports at the end of October/early November if you want a chance to see the course, I may well have to do this race again but with a bit of practice.

Pics

My fast sister Nikki with family friend Chris, me at Ballacraine enjoying it because I was about to do a short stretch on the road! the one of my sis and me on the same bit of off road is Creg Ny Crock and the last 2 are looking tired coming up the Howe which is the climb to the finish. Still looking for a pic of my dad but I will find one!!

Vitruvian Triathlon

Plan "A" Friday 4Th depart Bridlington 0730hrs to arrive at Liverpool 1000hrs to collect Beth off the ferry from the Isle of Man as she had been on holiday staying with my mum and dad. Return to Bridlington at approx 1330hrs, lunch, load up the car and set off for the Vitruvian to register at 1700hrs, meet up with Mat and then go to his house for dinner and sleep over. Race Saturday and drive home. Sounds good so far? Plan A goes tits up at 0950hrs when my dad rang to say the ferry had broke down half way across and was returning to the Isle of Man. The ferry company had decided to put everyone on a new boat when they got back and set off again. They finally got under way at approx 1130hrs but due to extreme weather didn't arrive in Liverpool until 1550hrs!! I then had the pleasure of driving Beth back to Bridlington during Friday rush hour traffic and didn't arrive back until 1930hrs. OK plan "B" no chance of getting to Mats until at least 2200hrs so plan "B" is have some dinner and go to bed at 2120hrs and try to sleep, get up at 0200hrs on Saturday and drive down for the race. Got a phone call from Mat asking how far down I was at 0430hrs and told him I was in a lay by about 20 miles from Rutland Water having breakfast. Arriving at Rutland at about 0500 I joined the long Que for the car park knowing I still had to go and register, set up transition and be out of transition for 0600 for the race brief. This was achieved with relative ease and I could finally relax and start thinking about the race.

The swim started and I tried to stay on the outside of the group and managed not to get knocked about too much, I exited lap 1 and ran round to start lap 2. I think I was on about 16 mins when I looked and lap 2 went well exiting the swim with a time of 31:39. Not too disappointed with that but would have liked to have been nearer the 30 min mark. I had a slow T1 as I put my socks on so I didn't have to mess about in T2. Out on the bike and I set off at a sensible pace and found we were straight into a head wind. Once over the "Rutland Ripple" with the change in direction it was a nice tail wind and 53 x 11 time. I passed a lot of people on this section of the course. I went through the first lap avoiding the drinks station as I had plenty of fuel on board and made up a couple more places in that area. On lap 2 the ripple had become a hill and I managed to make up more places on the climbs as people started to fade. I finished the bike in 2hrs 22 mins and 2 secs. The legs felt quite tired and I was not looking forward to the run, I set off from T2 and as soon as I dropped down the hill to the lake side I stopped to empty the bladder, this took over 30 seconds which I was pleased about as it meant I was well hydrated and could push on the run. I ran hard and was catching loads of people. I finished lap 1 and started lap 2 feeling really good. I pushed on across the dam and out to the turn point. On the way back I tried to pick up the pace and was going well to the 19.5 k mark. At this point the speed took a turn for the worse and I felt the small rise in terrain, I ran down the hill to the dam with good speed using gravity to the max and managed to recover a bit so the last little climb from the waters edge didn't present a problem and then its down hill to the finish picking up the pace as I approached the line. I ran a 1hr 27min 02 sec half marathon. My finishing time was 4hrs 23 mins and 32 seconds which was good enough for 25Th overall.

So my first ever Vitruvian done, I will now have another go at it with a target of sub 4hr 20 min next year. The drive home was a killer, I was sooooooo tired. I had to do a espresso coffee stop to wake up a bit. I got home at 1530hrs, sorted out the kit, had some dinner and was asleep on the sofa by 1930hrs. A tough day at the office but I really enjoyed the race.