Hope Against Cancer Leicestershire SuperTour

This was the first Sportive that I had entered in over a year and chose the 115 mile + 5km run option for the day. The event is put on by ITP events which is the same crew that run the Lincoln Grand Prix Sportive amongst others. This was a warm up for Ironman Wales in September and I fitted tri bars to the road bike in preparation.

HQ was in a village called Sutton Bennington and the route was basically a large squashy loop of Leicestershire. I started with three of my Wheelers buddies but broke away after about 7 miles or so and rode the last of the sportive solo.

The aim of the day was to try and average 15mph as this what I want to achieve as a minimum in Wales. The climbing for the day was supposed to be over 5000 feet too so conditions would be replicated. I started just after 8am with three other Wheelers buddies but we had split off by about mile 7 as the course began to climb and climb. In the initial third of the route it seemed that all we did was climb and I have to say I really started to like it. No rush, just make sure to get up them without building up the old lactic acid was the order of the day.

There were feed stations and I opted to miss the first one, but was ready for the one at 60 miles though. Plenty of cake followed in the three minutes that I allowed myself inside !
The second half of the ride was a little longer than the first as some joker had changed the signs around and I ended up being sent up a hell of a climb to Uppingham and off course. 9 miles in the A47 put me back in the game and I rejoined the official course for the last 20 miles or so. By the end, I had covered 120 miles, done lots and lots of hills (6400ft of climbing! ) and still had a run to do.

It was hot, hot, hot and I didn't really fancy the run, but did it anyway, on what was an out and back around a cone job.

Final results were 7.55 for the ride & 24 minutes for the 5k so a good days training done and dusted.

Local TT catch up

22.07.14 GPdesGents 25.02

The annual club 'grab an older guy', do a 2up and then get lots of time bonus dependant upon age of the riders. I hooked up with my regular partner again whos 49 this year , however, riding against teams with 70 year olds in them meant that although we did well on scratch again, we lost time on 'age-back' and ended up 7th overall.

12.07.14 Lincoln Wheelers Charity 10
A first ride on the Ingham course this year and a test for the new Chinese wheels.The day should have been a fast one as it was very hot and seemed not to be very windy. I was no.58 for the day and had my mate Tricky behind me to keep me on my toes !  The start could have gone better, and I found that I had ridden the first mile in the small ring ! Right, change up and full on time trialling mode.  Made the turn at 24.6 mph average and turned into a head wind !  A very slow slog back to the start and then one gift downhill later saw me finish in a not as well as expected 24.14. A look at the results board helped the heart a little as it was clear it was a slow day for all !

09.07.14 Gainsborough InterClub 10m TT
A load of Lincoln Wheelers rocked up at East Stockwith for an InterClub rumble with our friends trent Valley, Retford, Viking Velo, & Aegir.  It was a windy night on a rectangular course that was hard work for half of it really working hard into the headwind, and then a lovely backwind for most of the return leg to bring the average back up to something reasonable. My eventual time read 23.56 for a SC PB (albeit 9.9miles), and 11th out of 41 riders on the night. Wheelers came 3rd overall.

08.07.14 Lincoln Wheelers 25mile Club Champs
Back on the Bardney course, so a mad rush to leave work to get signed on by 6.30pm. Got there early enough for race no.2 ! Which meant that after I
'd caught Pete who rode at No1, I had nobody to chase down for 20 odd miles ! didn't struggle with the wind and had a lovely little push up the finishing straight and rises to register an overall time of 1.03.08 which is a 25 mile PB.

01.07.14 Lincoln Wheelers Club 10 Champs
Daves first TT which ended with a puncture, but still strange chasing your own brother down ! Rode best ride of the season so far to claim 3rd place on the night with 24.25 finish and some good rider of the season points.

24.06.14 Newton 10TT 24.40
Similar conditions to the week before and where with some rest I suppose I could have improved, I was glad to be only a second slower than the previous week with the 100 still in my legs from two days before !

17.06.14 Newton 10TT 24.39
An after the lords mayor show type performance as although I still felt good, I was a bit behind where I should have been on a night where conditions were favourable for a fast time. 24.39 is not too bad though for a course thats said to be 10.1miles and therefore 20 seconds adrift of an accurate 10 miles.

Woodhall Spa Triathlon race report

Where it all started, and my favourite Sprint Triathlon race !

This would be my fourth Woodhall Triathlon, seeing previous finishes at 1.31, 1.21 & 1.14. Today I just wanted to see a little further improvement. This is how things unfolded :

Swim 8.19
I was shivering at pool side as it had started raining, however, it was bloody great in the pool as the water was so warm. Had clear space ahead of me at the start and felt very fast in the water for the first six lengths. As things settled a little I still found myself swimming OK and flopped out of the pool at c.8 minutes for the sprint into T1 which took me a whole 58 seconds to navigate.

Bike 40.37
Head down, time trial mode ! To make any headway I had to beat an average of 21.3mph gained at 2012's effort. For the first part of the ride it felt like a headwind and that average was just out of grasp. The second half had more backwind and I was able to hold better speed. It was wet though and I struggled to see out of the visor which had misted up. The average rose and rose and hit a pleasing 22.5 mph as I jumped off and ran into T2. Didn't mess around - 49 seconds !

Run 20.32
Forgot my Garmin, so ran this one blind. Chased down a Tri3 guy and then ran with him at pace all the way round. 20.32 not bad for how I was felling on the day.

1.11.16 overall so a 3 minute improvement over two years ago !

TLI Lincolnshire Road Race - Grantham

Well, it was my second ever road race after my first effort last year at Ashby. After managing to finish almost plum last at my last effort on a flatter course, my main concern was completing and picking up some points in the clubs rider of the season competition.

The HQ was held at Grantham Cricket Club, and I was on the ball, arriving early to bag race number 2. The course was a three lap affair of approx 12 miles each on apparently underlating roads. I graded myself as group 2 and joined 10 other group 2ers waiting for our start time of approx 7.05pm. This is how it went :

Lap 1
Started off well with the group working as a solid chainganging unit. First four miles flew by until a couple of riders decided to have handbags and at that point it disintegrated. Being at the back of these two, we fell off the group and it was a real struggle to get back on. I had a rest, and then started taking turns again at the front. There was a long hill at mile 11 at the end of the first lap and I drifted off the back...... again :-(

Lap 2
Could see my group tantalisingly close for about three miles but could not get back with them. Spent the next 7 miles riding solo waiting for the faster groups to come by. When they did, I was too slow to get on and then there was the hill back up to the start/finish line - no hope ! I crossed the line and heard the bell, I had 12 more solo miles to go !

Lap 3 
It really hurt but I kept on pushing solo. Marshall were taking signs down and deserting their corners in some cases. The chaps at the finish line were still there though as I completed my 36.5miles and finished...erm... probably plum last.... again !

ECCA 100

5.06am is an insanely early time to be pulling up to a start line for a time trial, but there I was none the less, having a crack at my second only 100 mile time trial.

For ease of my brain, I had decided to again break down  again into smaller 25 mile chunks and targeted last years average speed per 25 of 22.8 /21.8/22.4/23.1.

This year, I put them in descending order and set my targets accordingly :
23.1mph
22.8mph
22.4 mph
21.8mph
- I took 2 x 750ml bottles of high 5 zero, 3 flapjacks and 2 gels.

Easy peasy then - what could go wrong ?
Well initially nothing. The first 15 miles are single carriagway going North, and I managed to negotiate this well, catching the folks that started 4 & 5 minutes in front of me. I even had time to go round a roundabout when I made an error.
When I got onto the A11 my average was tapping 22.8 and at as the first 25 mile section ended this had improved to 23.2mph - job done then for the first quarter and ahead of the game !  Miles 23 to 50 had a target average of 22.8mph then, and being dual carriageway albeit quiet, this was achievable and so it proved with 23.3mph achieved.

At the start of the third section I had to stop and fish a fresh bottle out of the grass verge that I had secreted the night before ! So with 5 minutes gone my average had nosedived. With more traffic on the road however, this soon improved and despite the stop, miles 50 - 75 proved to be the fastest of the day at 23.4mph against the target of 22.4mph.

So, what could go wrong ! Miles 75 - 100 to negotiate, and initially all was well, I managed the first 15 miles of this at an average of 24mph - and then the wheels fell off ! We turned back onto the single carriageway due South for the last 10 miles and I had nothing left. Small climbs were taking an age, and any power in the legs had gone !  Every mile hurt, and I fould myself counting down and hoping for a short course. Eventually I saw the finish and whooped for joy as I crossed with a final quarter average of 22.2mph.

Still a nine minute personal best but it could have been so much better :0(

Summer Soltice 10k

This event is put on each year by Grantham Running Club and is popular with local running clubs - to be frank though, I had never heard of it until this year, so I thought it rude not to enter and tick another local race off the list.

Held on a hot, sticky, windless Friday evening, I was uncomfortable in the sun as we walked to the start and chatted as we waited to get away. My secret target for the night was a steady run at approx 46 minutes something as I had been doing less and less short fast stuff recently.

When the start came hough, I found myself latching onto green vests and then getting sucked in to actually racing one of them - nooooooooooooooo - I knew I shouldn't have done it and should have relaxed - but the racing eyes were on and I pushed through the first mile in 6.48. The second mile was a slower 7.00 and the third a slower even 7.09. At the halfway point I was still battling a team mate and went through in a low 22. I had a decision to make....

Do I........ A) Take the second half of the race a little easier knowing that it would be a good time or
                B) Continue racing like a madman, pushing the limit, and hope to hang on ?

Yep, B every time !

I was slower in the second half, clocking mile splits as high as 7.31, however when I got to mile 5, I put everything into it knowing I had a chance to go sub 45 for the first time. During that last mile back into and through Long Bennington, I knew I had done it, then doubted I had done it, told myself I hadn't done it, and then had to cut the final corner and throw myself at the line to do it !

Running event no.70 and finally, I have gone sub 45 for a 10k :-)

LRRA 50mile TT

As I have said before, my recent time trialling has left a lot to be desired !  For this 50 mile event, I took my bike in for a fitting the night before because the position had been set up aggressively in the past for short time trials. As this would be my all round time trial bike from now on, clearly something would need to change !

I arrived at HQ 45 minutes before my start time and chatted with other Wheelers. I didn't feel any pressure, as I knew I had been 'off' the pace over the past few weeks and didn't expect much from the day. This was also the course that I managed to put in a terrible 2.23 performance last year - so the day was just about doing better than that.

From the off, I felt faster and crucially more comfortable in my new position. My undercarriage was definitely relieved and I was able to hold the correct position for longer. By the first roundabout at c.3miles I could see that I was catching a club
mate which gave me a little boost.

Round the roundabout then and back along the A15 to Osbournby roundabout and then third exit right to begin the drag upto the Grantham roundabout. This went better than expected to although I suspect there was some back wind action going on here to make things easier ! At the roundabout, I was up on all 3 club mates that I could track and now it was a straight 17 mile headwind drag to the next turnaround.  I did have a carrott which made things more interesting, however, after a caught that one, I didn't have another for some time.

I had a gel, and most importantly kept munching the odd jelly baby on the way round which seemed to work very well. At the 2nd to last turn, I was still up on the others but 35 miles in the new position had taken its toll !  I found myself having to stretch regularly by climbing out of the saddle and by 40 miles I was beginning to feel like I'd had enough.  

I turned onto the Sleaford 10 course for the last 10 miles and found some more concentration when I really needed it, That last 10 was ridden competently and I could see by the very last turn that I still had my club lead. The last 3 miles were mostly downhill and I hammered through it anxious to get the whole thing over with !

2.08.14 on the day improved last years time by 15 minutes and emphasised the importance of a good bike fit. The clubs 50 handicap trophy will also be making its way to me at the end of the year !