Train for pain

I’ve spent the last few weeks getting myself back into off-road cycling in readiness for the cyclocross season.

It’s slightly strange this year as there’s a National Trophy race the weekend before the Three Peaks cyclocross. As some of you will know, I’m a bit nuts about the Three Peaks race and whilst I don’t mind a shorter, faster, flatter training event or two before the biggie, having a National Trophy race before is a bit of an unwanted distraction. There’s a bit more at stake in the national series and I can’t afford to do a dreadful ride, so it’s been a bit odd trying to combine training for the two very different events.

Whilst I’ve been trying to get in the odd fell race this summer (three shorties since my break after Elsie was born) I’ve also been trying to get back into crit racing on the road bike (hard to dip in and out of – it’s a ’speed’ versus ‘fitness’ thing). Also, for the last few Sundays, Lewis (Craven) and I have been meeting up at 6:30am nearby and getting some long off-road ‘cross bike rides in to get ourselves ready for the Three Peaks. (this is the usual training route – when mechanical issues allow me to complete it!)

I’ve also been on the scales again and decided that I’m fast running out of time to lose those 6 extra pounds I really want shot of, so it’s no more booze and (fairly) strict dieting for September.

The upshot of all this is that I’m a bit wasted… but it’s nice thinking in the back of my mind that somehow, there’s a plan coming together, that may just work. Whilst I’ll be very happy not to get lapped at the first round of the National Trophy at Abergavenny like last year, I want to do all in my power to do the very best I can do in the Three Peaks. I don’t want to look back in a few years and wish I’d tried harder when I was younger.

Too busy to blog

It’s a sad state of affairs when you get too busy to blog. Considering we haven’t been away this summer, it’s been pretty hectic.

Obviously, having a new(ish) baby about the place is a good reason to keep my fingers off the keyboard in non-work time, but it also seems to have just been a bit of a packed time. Loads of things have happened that I’d usually go into great detail reporting, but the reporting time itself is at a premium, so instead, in the ultimate compromise, a list-view of recent goings-on:

• Two fell races (and one more coming up this Wednesday) – in the Rossendale mid-week series – finished just about where I wanted to in the Golf Balls fell race and let myself down a bit in the Pilgrim’s Cross fell race. Google Earth maps of the fell races here
• Two smashing days out on a long weekend:
  Morecambe: – had a trip to the seaside in some pretty decent weather at last – and a great chance to play with Lily on the beach (although she lost Ariel’s arm!) and visit the recently renovated Midland Hotel – an art deco landmark. A fully restored Gill relief sculpture of the Morecambe Bay area was a lovely highlight, as was getting a snap of Mum on the steps of the Hotel holding her wedding photo from the same spot. I also managed to sneak in a nice ride back from Morecambe via the gorgeous Trough of Bowland and long climb of Waddington Fell.
  Great Hucklow: – an annual trip to catch up with some old friends from Gloucestershire – Will and Juliet – and their fun family. A grand day out including some climbing wall fun and Will being part of the Doris Dancing team..
• Some good momentum in the Three Peaks training, with some great 6:20am starts now three Sundays in a row (albeit with some appallingly bad mechanical incidents, the training still happened!).
• The Olympics have been a time to be proud as a cyclist. We should make the most of times like these and it won’t be long before the Telegraph and Mail bits of the country start hating pesky lycra louts again. The Olympics in general have been a great reminder of how utterly rubbish the ‘normal’ sport on TV is in this country. So, so so so so so so badly skewed in favour of footballers pretending to be fowled. Some dodgy tattoos though.
• I’ve relaunched the UKCyclocross.com website. It’s now a fully functional ‘ning’ – a cyclocross social network with some stunning functionality – I really hope people start using it to upload their own reports and images.

I’ll hopefully gather some time in the near future to start writing ‘properly’ some time soon. When things calm down. That distant, lovely day that never comes.

Waugh’s Well Fell Race 2008

So that’s the break over with. 52 days after Elsie was born and 54 days since my bike crash, I’ve finally got back up and running and started the ‘training’ as opposed to the ‘keeping ticking over’. I’m really glad I forced myself to do the Waugh’s Well fell race earlier this evening.

A shade under four miles and climbing approx 1300 feet, it’s a classic Lancashire short fell race. I did it a few years ago and know the hill of Whittle Pike (climbed twice) really well – our house pretty much looks onto it so it’s a real landmark to me.

The time, and position were neither here nor there. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was one heck of a workout and a reminder that competition is the best form of training. A couple of years ago I’d have been pushing a top ten in a race like this on a good day, but I was content to push myself as hard as I can this evening in the knowledge that I’m back to training rather than keeping fit.

Another gobsmacker for the statisticians out there… average heart rate of 178bpm for the race (look at that graph… redlining!) and a max of 186. At 38, that’s pretty good and I think the max-est max I can recall since getting the trusty Garmin 305. View the course here in Google Earth. Mainly and out-and-back up-and-down race with a loop in the middle.

I beat my previous best by 40 odd seconds – I did the race four years ago and came 22nd. Not sure what position I was this year but it was about the same. Room, and time for improvement… the upward slope has started, touch wood.

A quick evening bike ride… after 15 years

The relocation of my brother Phil to his new job in Lancaster – and soon that of his family, as soon as they find a place to live – is starting to have an impact on me in a great way. It’s just so great to be able to meet up and do things pretty informally. His life and home in Devon were so great and visits were brill, but it’s such a big deal to get in the car, pack all your stuff, and ‘organise’ a trip.

A couple of weeks ago, just after Phil started, he popped down for the evening, after work – a meal, a few pints, all simple stuff, but stuff that’s been missing for so long.

Last night, I met Phil with an old friend and long-term colleague Richard Bardgett, thus reforming – in a small way – a set of cycling buddies I used to pop out for occasional cheeky evening rides with in… well… about 1993 ! The lanes round Longridge were a great choice for some lovely mellow chatting (we saw about ten cars all evening) and just to be able to get out and enjoy a nice bike ride without ‘training’ was so good for the soul. (My only non training rides in recent memory have involved a trailer-bike being attached to the back!)

We’ll have to do it again some time. Maybe let’s not leave it so long till the next one.

The Fred Whitton Challenge 2008 – Faking It

The Fred Whitton Challenge is billed as a 112 mile sportive ride for charity around the English Lake District, taking in six of the major passes en route… starts and finishes at Coniston, and includes the climbs of Kirkstone Pass, Honister Pass, Newlands Pass, Whinlatter Pass, Cold Fell, Irton Pike, and finishes with the brutal Hardknott and Wrynose Passes.

I’ve ridden the Fred Whitton Challenge in the Lake District for the last three years now, and seem to have got by on not much specialist training, but today’s event was the closest I came to coming unstuck! Although I’m not too gifted as a climber and don’t immerse myself in the world of long training rides, I’ve managed to get by on some type of fitness or other in the past. This year’s preparation was taking it to extremes, with my longest ride this calendar year being 2 hrs 15 minutes (the ride is generally over 6 hours). I also had a three week chest infection which culminated in a course of Penicillin starting on Wednesday. We’re not talking ‘training camps’ here.

But cometh the hour, cometh the Loafer, and I managed to somehow avoid death on the hottest extended bike ride I’ve ever done.

Avid readers will remember that I cleverly decided to ride as a domestique last year (a team helper), hammering the pace hard for the first 50 miles, and cunningly giving myself an excuse to do the rest of the ride at a relative trundle. Well this year I had a helper – a super-domestique in the shape of last year’s record breaking rider Lewis Craven, who’d been equally slovenly in his training in recent months, and was quite happy to work like a horse with me on the front of the 50 strong group until the first ‘killer’ climb at 45 miles; Honister Pass.

Whether the pace or the lack of training was the undoing of Lewis and I is up for debate, but come undone we did, big time, later on.

On the descent of Newlands Pass, Lewis punctured, and we agreed that I should push on at a leisurely pace to the top of Whinlatter Pass, where I’d wait for him if he hadn’t caught me. And wait I did, for ten minutes, until one very dead looking record-holder emerged up the climb. Lewis had blown and we were half way round. Bugger.

We took things really easy along the western side of the course, and decided at the second and final food stop (Gosforth) that it was time for a good rest and a gossip, so we ate and chatted to a few helpers and set off back ten minutes later.

The approach to Hard Knott pass, easily the hardest part of the route, is purgatory. Especially when you haven’t done the training. But up we rode, where most decided to walk in the heat, and were starting to approach home and dry. It was 28°. The heat was a contributing factor in Lewis’s second puncture on the hairy descent of Hard Knott pass (the hot rims from braking melted the rim tape and a spoke poked into the tube!). I mended it for him this time. He was in a worse state than me.

We pressed over the final climb of Wrynose pass and rolled home rather flaked out and a bit sunburnt in a pretty unremarkable time of over seven hours.

Oh well. We still winged it I think, considering the lack of training. And we were mini heroes in helping keep the pace so high early on that Wheelbase team mate Rob Jebb manage (along with national hill climb champion James Dobbin) to break Lewis and Stuart Reid’s record for the event. Bitter-sweet stuff for Lewis, but that’s cycling. He was modest and full of humility throughout though – a very respectable man!

View the 2008 Fred Whitton in Google Earth

FULL CLICK HERE for full Fred Whitton Results 2008

Photos here (or slideshow if you’d prefer).

My Stats from the Garmin 305 (didn’t pause it at any time).

• 109.4 miles
• Max speed: 51.9mph
• Total Calories: 9367
• Avg Heart Rate: 151bpm
• Max Heart Rate: 179bpm
• Total ascent and descent: 14061 feet