The day started at 3am with a long drive to the Cotswold's; its a part of the world which I've never been to before. Arrived at 6.30 and picked up my race number, had some food and waited for my friend Helen and her friend Sandy to arrive.
The race started at 8am , and we eventually set off at 8.15, there was about 1500 riders of all abilities cycling the 60 and 100 mile course. The weather was dry, a bit humid, but for me it was nice to be somewhere where it didn't rain for once!
We made the first feed station at 24 miles in about 2hr 15min, so far so good, and after filling water bottles and sampling the energy food [chocolate brownies] we headed off on the 100 mile course, no turning back now.
I won't bore you with every detail of the course, however I would like to point out that the Cotswold's isn't a flat place, its surprised me how hilly it was , and the course seemed to find every hill on offer!
At the 64 mile feed station we started to realise that we were behind our schedule, and our average mph had slipped below 10mph.
At 75 miles one of the event motor bikes supporting the riders stopped and explained that the event was shutting at 6pm , this surprised us as we were under the impression we had 12 hours to complete the course, the 6pm deadline meant we had a choice, carry on , but increase our speed towards average 20 mph to finish in time or retire.
Helen and Sandy decided to retire from the event, however my legs still felt okay, and recent time trialing with Celtic Tri gave me confidence to carry on.
I rode like a mad man for the last 25 miles and made the finish line in time, overall it took 9hr 58min, a lot longer than I thought it would take.
What I've learnt from this ride along and the Dragon ride is that 1st feed station is crowded and you can loose a lot of time waiting your turn to fill bottles etc.. The next event I do I will take enough food and water to make it to the 2nd feed station.
Summary, another 1st completed, and I would like to find one more sportive before the year is out, and apply what I learnt from the 2 sportive already completed and look to finish with an average of 14mph.
Only one more 1st left Chester Marathon in October
No comments:
Post a Comment