The last week of preparation before heading to Italy for the much anticipated “Gran Fondo”… and the plan for the week could be simply described, “blow-yersel-tae-bits”! So when Alun “Piglet” rang me on Wednesday asking if I’d like to take advantage of a free entry and join him at the Marin Rough Ride on Sunday, I was easily persuaded. Not only with the free place appealing to my “careful” Scottish nature, but I also knew that Al would push me hard.
We had already planned a day on the Road Bikes for Saturday, a Gran Fondo Team training day, 90 miles and 9500ft of climbing. A cracking day out that took us from Ashbourne to Hope and Edale, Barber Booth, up Mam Tor before heading down to Macclesfield, up over the Cat & Fiddle and back to Ashbourne with a sting in the tail at Ilam. As I was now racing on Sunday, I had planned to take it steady until Andy started chasing me up the Cat & Fiddle and refused to be dropped, where steady went right out of the window…
A beautiful warm and sunny Sunday morning in Herefordshire/Brecons, and 1000 people lined-up ready for a 10am start. Now I would have quite happily started further back, for a change, and was quite up for a reasonably sensible approach to the 75Km Cross Country course, but of course we found ourselves at the front and the moment the tape went up, all that sensibility magically vanished!
This course has a reputation for being a bit hilly, 7400ft in 45 miles, now that’s quite hilly, but the thing I wasn’t exactly prepared for was just how steep and how long some of the hills were. There comes a point when a hill gets so steep that every pedal stroke lifts the front wheel, and you cant steer when the front wheel is waving about in the air! Now I generally think I’m not bad when it comes to going up-hill… but when it comes to cycling up vertical walls, the Piglet is a veritable climbing God! I cant remember the last time I had to get off and walk/run just because it was too steep but 4 times in the same event is just silly!
Although it was never particularly technical but if you weren’t flogging your way up a long grassy hillside or being beaten-up by a near vertical ascent, then you had your eyeballs out-on-stalks at 35mph screaming down the same trying 1) to recover enough before the next big hill and 2) not to crash.
A brief stop at the 2nd feed station to re-fill my bottle and grab a flapjack and the guy there thinks we’re somewhere about 15th to 20th place. I am now really starting to feel the efforts of the previous day and struggling to stay with Alun, he’s quick on the descents and closing down the gap elsewhere is getting harder to do.
The 75Km course eventually rejoins the shorter 48Km course, where the “racing ferrets” get fed into the middle of all the “normal” people. Its quite good in one way… your never going to allow yourself to get beaten by the guy with the balloon, or get off on that hill where everyone else is walking, but you really do have to make a conscious effort through the red mist to try and be polite even though you can barely speak.
Almost at the top of yet another really steep effort, out of the saddle all the way, a chap who’s sat in the grass at the top enjoying a snack and a rest, says “Good effort mate”, its great encouragement but its impossible to convey my appreciation when I can barely say thanks!
After waiting for me at the last water station (and thus ensuring his victory!), Al soon opens up a gap again. I admit I was pleased to see the 10Km to go sign, it also means you can be a bit less measured about how hard to push and can afford to open it up a bit more. Approaching the top of the last big hill I’ve got the wee Piglet back to within 50ft, but his descending prowess is still better and he makes it back to the finish a couple of minutes ahead.
So Al takes the points on the day, but with Al’s assistance I’d achieved exactly what I set-out to achieve and did indeed blow-myself-to-bits! As for final times Al was in at 4hrs 50mins with me 1 minute behind.
Sadly the Insurance Nazis have decreed that there must not be any differentiation between those on the long course and those on the short course, as it might just then be treated as a race which the event insurance doesn’t cover, so sadly there is no way of sorting-out who finished where.
Of course none of us treat it like a race eh!?
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