Manx End 2 End Enduro

I would have liked to blog this race report earlier but its been a busy couple of weeks. The great news is my house has finally sold (completed today so I don't own it anymore) so Anthea and I have been busy. We've nearly bought our new one and hope to complete on that one on the 10th October. We are moving to Market Rasen which is north east of where we are at the moment. The house is a really nice 4 bed detached with garage and conservatory so at last I will have room to swing a cat (if I had one). This will be a big difference in my commute too. I will be around 23-24 miles from work. The plan is to drive Monday's with my kit for the week and commute the rest of the week on the bike. How this will work I'm not sure yet, I am looking forward to the challenge but don't want to get trapped in the mind set that its a chore which would make me get fed up with cycling. I will drive occasionally if it gets too much but plan to cycle as often as possible. Also the area i'm moving too has lots of woodlands within 5 minutes of the house and i'm on the Lincolnshire wolds so some nice cycling ground too.

Anyway onto the race. I went across to the Isle of Man for what has become my traditional end of season blow out. This year I didn't have to borrow a bike as I got a carbon Cannondale hard tail in August. The bike is superb and a real out and out race bred machine. I took my hope vision light across with me and my sister and I went out for an off road night ride while I was over. That is some serious fun and I think I will be doing much more of that when I move next month. 1700 people had entered the race this year but I didn't know they had seeded the top 100 based on the previous race last year to form an elite start group at the front of the field. This was nice to be at the front and not have to battle too much to get in the break away, and within a couple of miles I was in the lead break of around 50 riders. We hit the first climb and I felt good, moved through the field to around 20th. Once up the 1200 foot first climb I settled into a good pace as I was aware that i'd blown in the last 10 miles of the race in the previous 2 years and didn't want to do that again. I had 1x750ml bottle of High 5 Extreme on the bike as I don't like camel backs and my sisters boyfriend was doing the fuel stops for us. At the first pick up I grabbed the next bottle containing 4:1 and a caffeine plus gel taped to it and felt strong. It was the third pick up point that I had my first problem, Ian wasn't there with my bottle and I had nothing left in the one I had. I knew it was only about 30 or so minutes to the last place I was getting a bottle so during this time I took 2 High 5 Iso Gels to keep me going. It was during this stretch I had my second problem, I dropped off a ledge that had been a lot lower in previous years and stupidly looked back at the height of it, my front wheel caught the edge of a rut and I was off and rolling down the hill side but it was a nice soft landing on the heather. At the last fuel stop I grabbed the bottle of 4:1 off Ian I had missed at the other stop and was surprised to see my sister there. She had had a mechanical and pulled out of the race, Ian had gone to get her and that's why he hadn't been at the other fuel stop. I also grabbed the bottle of flat coke I was getting at that point and downed it in a oner. I then hit the last climb of the day and did 3/4 of the climb on the big ring, I knew I was in good form as i'd really struggled on this climb in the past events. On to the last big decent of the day and crash number 2 happened. Too much speed on a single track decent and I once again caught the edge of a rut only this time I landed in a gauze bush, not so pleasant. I still have splinters from my ankle to my arse!!! I got up quickly and ran back to the bike, jumped on and set off again. The hard work was nearly done, the last 2 miles is on the road with a big climb to the finish but on the road its much easier. I finished in 30th overall from 1700. To get an idea of how tough this event is only the first 85 finishers got a gold standard finish (sub 4 hours) and my time was 3 hours 35. I can't wait for next year :-)

Vitruvian Triathlon - Rapid Running

Two weeks after my European Long Course race it was time for the Vitruvian Triathlon. What do you do with 13 days between a long distance triathlon and a middle distance. Well apart from spend a few days sulking after being so close to the podium on the Wednesday (3 days after the race) I went for a 4 mile steady run. Thursday I did a 3.5 hour mountain bike ride then rested again Friday and Saturday. On the Sunday I did an 11 mile run followed by a 1 hour mountain bike ride then on the Monday I cycled to work the longer way in (18 miles), swam 1500m during lunch then cycled 12 mile home. Tuesday I did the same again then Wednesday I cycled 12 mile to work, decided at 13:15 that I was going to do the Scampton road race so got changed and cycled at race pace to Scampton leaving enough time to change my shorts and shoes before the race started. The course was 5 miles (measured by gps) and I ran 27:59 which is a nice 5:35 average per mile and good enough for 2nd place. Thursday was a cycle to and from work with a swim at lunch then Friday was a cycle to and from work. So Saturday morning at 03:50 and the alarm goes off, I get up but feel tired and really can't be bothered with the race but seen as i'd paid £110 to enter I thought I better do it. I was surprised at the temperature when I arrived as its usually cold down there at this time of year but it was a pleasant 15 degrees at 05:30 which put me in a better mood for the race. After registering and collecting my race pack up which had a nice gillet in it I set up transition then moved across to the RAF Tri gazeebo to change and exchange some banter with the others. At 06:50 I was in the water and the race started, I set off swimming at a good pace and at the end of the first lap thought I was swimming well. At the end of the second lap I thought i'd done a good swim but looked at the watch to see 31 mins so not as quick as I thought, I ran into transition and struggled to get the suit off over the top of the timing chip but once done had a good transition and set off on the bike.

I left transition and got going on the bike, took a gel then got down to business moving through the field. During the bike I was going well and due to the fact I was on the road bike (the TT bike still not fixed) I was able to big ring the whole course only having a 50 tooth compact chainset. Towards the end of the second lap I needed to release some of the fluids i'd taken on during the bike and was planning to go for a p.b on the run part of the course so I stopped briefly. Once i'd emptied the bladder I got back on the bike and quickly passed the 4 people who'd passed me whilst at standstill. I pushed on towards transition and completed the bike in a reasonable but not outstanding 2:22.

Transition 2 was swift as I'd opted to not use socks for the first time in an half ironman after a recommendation from European Champion Pete Norris, so using no socks and the superb Saucony Kinvara I set off to try and run faster than last years 1:22 at this race (a very rapid time anyway) and tried to focus on pace control and work out when I was going to fuel with the 3 gels I'd planned to use. After about 500 meters and a quick think to when my last gel on the bike was I decided that a gel immediatly would be a good move. The other 2 were taken at 8k and 16k. I was moving well and felt strong so kept focussed and concentrated on my cadence, I was aware I was moving through the field at a much quicker rate than most people and came home with a 4:16:30 overall and it wasn't till later when the results went up that I found out i'd ran a 1:19!!!! I'm very happy with that, and I feel that was a nice way to end the season. It was the 6th quickest run on the day too.

4 days after the Vitruvian I had the opportunity to run in the Cranwell road race so I cycled into work 12 miles, at lunch time cycled 12 miles over to cranwell for the run, did the race (5.8 miles) finishing in 2nd place then cycled 23 miles home.

On Thursday I'm sailing to the Isle of Man for my usual end of season mountain bike enduro event/see the family. This is always a fun day out but incredibly hard work, if you've never done a mountain bike race you need to try one to appreciate how much harder a day on the bike can be compared to riding in the time trial position pushing a big gear at a nice constant pace. It really messes you up with the crazy cadence involved for very little gain on the climbs balanced out with keeping your weight in the right place.

I don't know if I will do an end of season sprint or not but I might have a go at the Peterborough half marathon in October as I think if the weather is good a sub 1:15 could be on the cards. 10 days after that is the Henlow 10 and then I will look at some down time before planning out next years racing.

Race pictures from Finland

A few pics that i've had sent from the photographers in Finland.