Exercise and Exorcism

A minor mountain climbed yesterday at Lee Quarry in the fourth race of the five race Hope XC Series, as one gangly bet rider set out on his first race at Lee Quarry since he broke his collarbone there in April 2009. (more…)

Golf Ball Fell Race 2010

That didn’t quite go according to plan.  Not that there was much of a plan… but I got a bit of a shock in a race. You usually get them in sport once or twice per year, but it was a hard lesson to me that you can’t just drop into a fell race for the first time in a few months and expect to perform. Add to that a nice relaxing holiday with only a few ‘get me by’ bike rides, and no running at all for 16 days, and looking back, I was heading for a kicking.

The Golf Ball race is a deceptively tough short race. The terrain gets steadily harder to run on under foot and the long, runnable climb that culminates five minutes from the finish isn’t kind to you if you’re on the rivet. Still, I’ve done it five times now and that was my worst result – a minute or so slower than the previous worst, and some four minutes slower than my fastest in 2005.

The graphs here show some clues as to where I faltered, but basically fresh legs at the start were pushed too fast too quickly and they hit me back hard about half way through the race. I was in 11th or 12th place and thought I could hang on and lose 2 or 3 places, but I’d forgotten how hard the last climb was, and I got savaged by plenty of people very quickly.

Anyway – with just over 5 weeks to the 3 peaks cyclocross now it’s just about enough time to turn a fairly good base fitness into the right sort of form and speed, but I’m leaving things tight, and don’t want any nasty hiccups now in the next few weeks.

Ile de Ré Summer Holidays 2010

In the early summers of my childhood, my Dad and Mum packed my brother Phil and I, still sleeping, into the back of our family car, with a caravan in tow, and drove us to the south of France each year.   The journeys and holidays were long and packed with some of the strongest memories I’ll keep.  Those of us lucky enough to have any Family Holiday as children will always keep those memories, and looking back on this particular branch of the Haygarth family’s trip to the Ile de Ré, I know that the beat goes on and on, and as many families do, we’ve done our own version of the full circle.

With a car packed with everything from bikes to buckets, we lifted the children from their beds at 2:30am and set off to Dover. Elsie proved that despite not knowing what the heck was going on, she could hold a pretty good conversation for a two year old in the dead of night, but we eventually got her settled by Stafford, an hour od so later.  Arriving at Dover a bit blearly eyed and checking onto the ferry was a bit of basic relief. Anything like that carries with it an irritating deadline and the need for a bit of buffer time, but at least we were there now, intact, in time, and in need of medium cappuccino with an extra shot. (more…)

Blackburn Grand Prix 2010 – a win brings relief

A year ago I went to ride my first Blackburn Grand Prix race, and as soon as I rode onto the course for a warm-up, immediately knew it was a course for me. Last year’s race was really enjoyable for me and I went off the front of the race from the second lap and stayed there, eventually finishing in fourth place. The race was won by my stronger team mate Lewis Craven, but his attack and domination of the race had left me with some unfinished business. I wasn’t free to chase Lewis in 2009 – I’d earmarked the 2010 race as mine to win. (more…)

Deershed Festival 2010. Family Frolics in Sunny Yorkshire

Fantastic 24 hours camping at the Deershed Festival over near Thirsk this weekend. Sandwiched between rain on Friday and Sunday, we managed to enjoy a pretty sunny day of musing and moseying to music and general arts. (more…)