This, That and Man Flu

Well its "off season" so not a lot going on really. I had a full month off the bike after my last race and have only just started getting going on the bike. Done a few 1 hour rides but no distance yet. I have fitted a set of crud road bike guards which seem to do a great job and are the only guards I have fitted to the Giant OCR winter bike with any success. Its not time for the turbo yet as its not quite at the snow and ice stage of winter so still out on the road. I have been offered a Hope vision 2 front light to borrow for the winter from my sponsor and should have it fitted this week. I have spent the week watching Anthea suffer with a heavy cold and matched her symptoms at about 1 - 2 days behind her. Of course me being a man, my condition is a lot worse!! I have "man flu" but I am still managing to do a bit of training as its only a head cold and not on my chest. I am stuck in work today so have been surfing the web a bit and found the bikes pictured. If I had between £4000 and £6000 (dreaming, I don't have any money for a bike) I would of course do a custom build but for an "off the shelf" bike from those shown I think I would opt for the Bianchi, which would you choose?

More media coverage

This weeks coverage is of the End to End Mountain Bike race I did in the Isle Of Man, it was shown 4 times over the 3rd and 4th November on Sky Sports 3. I was filmed leading the main pack of 970 riders trying to close down the 3 breakaways. I even had my name called out by the commentator! Beat that Turboman!!! Next weeks media coverage is the main story on the sports pages of the weekly newspaper "The Bridlington Free Press" and no its not free before you ask!

I now have a provisional game plan for next seasons targets but will reveal all after I find out a bit more info about the races planned and will then make it public knowledge but lets just say its ambitious.

Hear my radio interview - for one week only!

For those that don't know I was interviewed for BFBS radio at the weekend regarding the Yorkshire and Humber title. If you want to hear my embarrassing interview click on the following link http://www.bfbs-radio.com/pages/extranet/listenagain.php and scroll down to "From the touchline" its Saturday part 3 and starts at 29 mins just as the Saturdays record is finishing. Try not to laugh at me. Yes I know i'm a sad man but its as near to fame as i'm going to get!

2 wins in 1 day

Well that's it, the season is officially over for me. I had my last race on the 11th October at Dalby Forest. It was an off road duathlon and I had to race it as I needed the points for the Yorkshire and Humber Championship. The championship is a series of 20 races with your best 4 to count. I was in 2nd place in the league and hoped my 2nd place earlier in the month at the Hull sprint would have been enough to take the title but it left me .4 of a point away from winning the league. This left me with no alternative but to enter the off road duathlon at Dalby Forest. I had to do some smooth talking with my sponsor Paul at http://www.hilderthorpecycles.co.uk/ to borrow his Giant Anthem XO again for the event. Paul was very kind and agreed to lend me the bike and for the first time in years I actually went out to reccy the course (how serious is that?). I knew I would struggle with the technical sections of the course but hoped the big climb and sections of open fire track that I could use my power to stay competitive. I had to have a game plan and stick to it as I needed a podium finish for the points. Run 1 was 2.5k around a couple of grassed fields before dipping into single track with lots of decents and climbs through the woods. I arrived back in T1 in first place by 30 seconds and set off on the bike. The bike course was 4 x 7.5 k and by the time we had covered the first technical part of the course I was down in 3rd. On lap 2 I had dropped to 6th and was thinking of stacking it as I would not get the points I needed but decided I could still get some time back on the run. At the end of lap 3 I was gaining confidence on the technical stuff and had got back up to 4th and on the last lap regained 3rd. Arriving in T2 the leaders were 2 1/2 mins ahead and I set off to give chase, at the end of lap 1 the gap had closed and I pushed harder on lap 2. The gap was still falling and on lap 3 I took the lead with about 3k to go. I continued to push hard and pulled clear to take the win by 1 min 5 seconds. My run was the fastest of the day by over 3 mins!. So a great result, I won the race and I also won the championship. I am now officially the Yorkshire and Humberside Champion. I won a pair of Spuik MTB shoes worth £85 and a UKMTB cycle top. I am awaiting confirmation of what I have won for the championship and should hear this week. That has topped off the year for me and I feel the season has been a success after a bit of a dodgy start. My 4 races to count in the championship were 1st/2nd/2nd/5th. I can now enjoy a bit of a break before planning next years races and targets but think 1/2 IM is the way forward with an aim of qualifying for Clearwater and hopefully I might do a GB long course either world or european champs.

Last triathlon of the year but not the last race.

Well the Humber Sprint Triathlon was the last tri of the year for me, however its not the last race of the year. The weather was cold but nice and dry and not to windy after the previous days storm. I was off at 10:10 so by the time I had got out of the water in 7:24 which included the long run to T1 it was quite warm and getting warmer. I was about 10 seconds behind Dean Kirkham who is also a GB age grouper so new I would have to push hard on the bike and for the first couple of miles we were draft legally very close until the main climb started and I pulled ahead and opened a bigger gap of about 40 seconds. There was a nice fast decent and a tasty little climb about 1 mile from the end of the bike course. I arrived back in T2 with a bike time of 33:20 which was a bit slower than I would normally expect although it was the second fastest bike of the day. I changed into the fastwitch 3's and I was off on the run. This was flat with the exception of the 2 return crossings of a main road flyover which I felt very strong on. I crossed the line in 1:00:33 which was the fastest time of the day until about a minute later when the very talented junior (only 16 years old) Ollie Dixon crossed the line in 59:53 to beat me by 40 seconds. I was still the winner of the open category as Ollie picked up the junior prize. So another podium finish for me to end the tri season. It would have been nice to have won it outright but I will settle for second.

Only 2 races left now, the Dalby Forest Mountain Bike Duathlon on Sunday 11th Oct, then I have a bit of leave before the Henlow 10 on the 21st Oct. I am looking forward to that if I manage to hold on to my form as I did a 59 min 10 mile run in training a week ago. If I keep up that sort of form I would hope to run a 57 at Henlow all being well.

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.