Carry On Cramping - Thetford Summer Enduro 2013 Race Report

Yesterday was a rather nice day. Two years ago, Thetford MTB Racing hosted their inaugural Summer Enduro. I did the solo 10 hour race and had one of the best ever races I can remember. Sunny skies, fast trails and a party atmosphere made it a really enjoyable 10 hours on the bike. Last year, the enduro had to be cancelled due to a serious infestation of over zealous wombles in Thetford Forest. But it was back with vengeance this year.

Friday night consisted of camping, erecting gazebos and a pasta fest. The plan was to pre-ride the course, but the rain was lashing down and the motivation melted. Woke up early on Saturday, feeling a tad chilly, but it wasn't raining. Thankfully, it stayed that way. Hooray! Before I knew it, the gun went off and we were tucking in to some classic Thetford singletrack. Half way through the lap, I was really enjoying the course, then the long fire road sections started becoming a lot longer, and I lost touch with the main group I was riding with, but I kept the hammer down and after a quick transition, my partner was off. For the event, I teamed up with local legend, "Nibs" - who is essentially the cycling version of The Stig (except he doesn't wear a crash helmet, or appear on a TV series presented by and aimed at people with severe learning difficulties).

As the race went on, I started to feel pretty rough and was fading. Towards the end, Nibs put in a double lap to give me some much needed rest. I found doing pairs pretty tough, especially on a reasonably short course, as it didn't really give enough time to get proper food down (assuming you wanted to keep it in the stomach). Also, even tougher when your partner is monstrously fast and doesn't fade…ever.

The biggest problem I had during the race was cramp. To the point that when I left transition on the last lap, it took me a minute or so to be able to lift my leg up to clip in - much to the amusement of onlookers. I've found cramp to be a bit of the problem over the last month's worth of racing, so had a good chat with the Torq people at the end of the race about it all. I was pointed towards this article on the beloved electrolyte tablets (aka "anti-cramp" tablets). In essence, the science suggests that cramp isn't caused by dehydration/lack of salts, but over exertion. As the race progressed, I was pushing my self harder and hard to try and keep up with the pace set by Nibsm and was feel like a bit of a let down, but at least the cramp told me I was trying hard enough ;) Anyway, we placed 8th (annoyingly just a minute off 6th), in a really classy field, so not bad for a day's work.

Mountain Mayhem 2013 Race Report

DISCLAIMER - I AM VERY TIRED AND WILL PROOF READ TOMORROW ;)

Mountain Mayhem has always been on my hit list of events to do. One of the original 24 hour events, it's almost compulsory to do it at some point. A few weeks ago, Shergie asked me if I fancied joining a mixed team and having a crack - how could I have resisted?!

When I asked a bit more about the team, it dawned on me that I would be racing with some of the fastest endurance racers from South Wales. Gareth Evans and Jonny Williams both race for Loco Tuning and are annoyingly good at riding mountain bikes extremely fast. Hanneke Van der Werf joined us, racing for Torq / Qoroz is an extremely strong racer, and last year won the overall title in the Endurance Series. I knew from the start that I really needed to up my game.

On the Saturday morning, we pre rode the course, after the heavy rain throughout the night. We were met with a mudfest and felt generally disinterested in the course, the event and life in general. But, we had come to Princess Anne's estate for the singular purpose of racing, and we didn't want to disappoint her! So the race gets underway and Jonny goes off riding first (after a rather unpleasant cycling-shoe-hindered run. Gareth goes out next, and the heavens open. Whilst the faff monster attacks Shergie and his bike, I fear getting sent out next into the rain. Fortunately, the bike gets fixed and I was spared. 

Finally, the time comes for me to head out. After a slick transition, I go out on my first proper lap. Despite the muddy conditions, the course was a lot more interesting in race mode.

So back at the base camp, I decided to eat lots and rest ready for the next lap. Whilst I was waiting in transition, the word was that the course was drying out nicely and way more fun to ride. Shergie came in, gave me the wrist band and suggested I "pin it". I did accordingly and the course was a million times better. The 1000s of riders had carved out a line through the mud to the limestone beneath. I applied myself at pinning it, and came back with a lap time around 15 minutes quicker than before. I was chuffed, but cramp had kicked in on a few of the climbs.

More rest, and then it was going to be time for my..graveyard shift. As everyone was setting in for a night's sleep, I went out for a double lap stint. My strategy was to take it extra easy for the first lap, and then push harder on the second. This seemed to pay off nicely. However, feeling extremely tired, once I handed over to Hanneke, got back to the tent and got a few hours sleep.

Before I knew it, I was awake and cold. I felt pretty dire and would have been quite happy to never ride again in the race. But before I knew it, I had my CycleAid kit on, and I was drinking as much water as possible. Talk moved to caffeinated gets, and I had one stuffed in my hand. At the start line, waiting for Shergie, I emptied the sachet into my cake-hole and waited for the magic to happen. Before going out on that lap, I was asked my expected lap time (based on how I was feeling), and I went for an optimistic 1 hour. In my head, I knew that was going to be a tall order to deliver this late in the game. But as I started riding, the caffeine was soon kicking in, and I was feeling reasonable. I kept pushing as hard as I could, trying to drop a rider I suspected was also on a mixed team. I saw their weakness was climbing. So, naturally, I pushed as hard as possible to keep up the tempo on the climbs. There was a big, open, steep, grassy climb in the lap that was always my marker that the end was within touching distance. This seemed to appear much quicker than expected, but I didn't think much of it, and got on with turning the pedals until my legs cramped. Really digging deep into the saddlebag of pain, I just buried myself on the last 2 climbs. I knew I was pushing my body hard because I had even dehydrated my eyes and my contact lens was dry. Through blurred vision, I tore through the event arena and hammered it towards transition, to be met by….

Silence!

That wasn't exactly in the script! After shouting the name a few times, my biggest concern was "what if I go back to the tents and he comes to the start via a different route?" Well, before procrastinating any longer, I tore off in search of Mayhem's next victim. Much to my relief, I found him straight away, and discovered I had somehow managed to pull out a flyer of a lap, almost 15 minutes ahead of schedule!! It felt so good to know that when I needed to really dug deep, I was able to turn out by far my best lap time - even when I was expecting to bonk. But my work was done, so I just collapsed on the floor, a steaming, shaking, sweating mess. My racing was complete. 

In the end, we managed to bag ourselves 8th place out of over 80 teams. All in a day's work...

Sharing the Tweed Love - a Glentress 7 Race Report

Couple of short and sweet little blog reports this evening. The first up is about a very, very enjoyable seven hour endurance race I did a few weeks ago up in Glentress. The unambigeously titled Glentress 7 offered mountain bikers the chance to race a really rather impressive 6.5 mile course, with over 400 metres of leg splitting climbing per lap.

Travelling up from Norwich to the Scottish borders is never really a quick trip, but the luxury of a big pick up truck and lots of nattering about general mountain biking helped speed it up on the Thursday. The mountain bike community of Glentress really put on a spectacular week of events under the Tweed Love banner. On the Thursday night, we were lucky to catch a cinema screening of a video competition for short films about mountain biking in the Tweed Valley, followed by the Red Bull-sponsored feature documentary Where The Trail Ends. This left us feeling rather inspired by beautiful cinematography of insane descending and the inside of numerous A&E departments. The two seemed to go hand in hand.

Friday gave us a chance to pre ride the course, but instead we opted to mis-read signs and, inadvertently, do an extended explore of some of the Glentress trails. This involved quite a bit of fire road work (yawn), and by the time we had reached the top, we weren't feeling particularly inspired or challenged. But then we found the main descent and were buzzing.

The following morning, when we set of racing, we soon discovered that the course was in fact a rather perfect mix of short, sharp fire road climbs (which were never particularly long - not easy - but not too long), then followed by awesome singletrack. This repeated until we reached the highest point of the course, and then that's when the magic happened. A set of swooping single track soon developed into a steep, tight, rooty, off camber descent to the arena area, routed through the dual slalom course.

This was my first endurance race since Kielder last year, so I wasn't really sure of my form, but I felt reasonable and notice a marked improvement on my technical riding at race pace, compared with previous years. All good! Until…

…one of the little single track sections that you drop in, I was "thrilled" to discovered that squeezing my rear brake lever no longer did anything to my rear brake! As luck would have it, the ground broke my fall, and my mouth expressed my mood with a set of historic phrases. I soon realised that my brakes no contained no pads - brilliant! I managed to cruise some of the way down using just the front brake. Another crash, and a failure of SOH, lead me to push the bike down a section. One of the marshals said they could radio in and it would be ok for me to go down the access road to the start. Turns out, the access road was about a billion miles longer and by this point both brakes had failed. Hmmm!!! At the area, I discovered a piston had gone missing from my rear, as had my motivation for more racing. When I remembered I was racing Mountain Mayhem in a couple of weeks, I decided there was no real point burning myself out for a decidedly average result, so I decided to save my energies for another battle!

Despite this, I absolutely loved everything about Glentress and have this event on my calendar already for next year.

24/12; The story of a Broken man

If I’m honest the build up for this race was somewhere between shamble and completely chaotic; through no fault of my own on the Monday before the biggest event so far this year I had a bike with a crack in it, no gazebo and no kit. Thankfully the most important element of the preparation was getting loads of miles in and feeling really strong on the bike. Errrmmmm no can’t really help you there either…

So all in all between trying to maintain a normal life, working two jobs and organising a third Bontrager 24/12 had somehow sneaked up on me and was now a little more than a week away. Gulp.

I knew I had the mileage in my legs, having recently ridden the length of Wales in the midst of an extreme weather warning I was pretty confident I had the head for it too but as is always the case with endurance racing, and indeed riding, the proof is in the pedalling.  With my legs held together by Scott Cornish and his magic rock tape and some work on my knee with any luck I had the pedalling sorted...
Thankfully the help and support side of things was covered; not only did I have what has to be the best support crew in the business, Heather and Mark, but the usual suspects were to be racing as well meaning that there would be an abundance of friendly faces on top of the usual lovely people this sort of event attracts.  Looking back im not sure what I was worrying about, as Loco’s Gareth kept saying, its all just ridding your bike ‘innt?

Luckily working in a bike shop does have its advantages, a hasty late night call to one of the most helpful people in mountain biking, Brant @ On One promised to dispatch a new frame the very next morning, this still left it all a bit close – a chance conversation with Jez @ Trek secured an ex demo Superfly 100 that with any luck would arrive the week before the even. No chance to test the bike off road but from what I had heard they were simply stunning bits of kit and let’s be honest, I had 24hrs to get used to the thing!

Working Friday and then driving down in the evening had its own bag off issues, not least the timing involved in getting three people from across the country to one point on a Friday night – it was late by the time we set off and the rain was getting biblical, honestly I was wondering whether I should have brought the canoe rather than a bike.  Thankfully by the time we had reached Plymouth it had calmed down. We quickly put up the gazebo, tent and emptied as much of the car as we could and then headed off to curl up in a warm bed for the night, this as it would turn out was possibly the best decision we made all weekend.

Apparently there was nearly a decision made to evacuate the campsite as the weather was so bad, this we only learned when arriving back on site after a warm shower and a nice breakfast, suffice to say we were not flavour of the month among those who had been woken up by streams of water running through there tents.

Lining up at the beginning of 24hrs is always an odd experience, a strange calm descends as your brain try’s to comprehend what you are about to make it do.  The first lap was as always a challenge in not getting caught up in the mad dash to the singletrack, slightly slower than usual due to the mud but strangely the sky had cleared; after all the issues it was finally riding a bike.

I sometimes wonder why I write these things as to be honest I really cant remember anything about the race, it was sunny, then it rained and then it was dark. Then it rained some more… I’m guessing it got light again at some point although I cant really remember when; all I can remember is that it got REALLY hard at about 8 in the morning. 

Last time I raced a 24 solo at Newnham I went out far to fast and blew up after about 8 hours – as you can imagine I was pretty paranoid about this happening again, especially with all the support and effort people were putting in around me.  Throughout the 1^st 12 hours of the race I was making a point of spinning and being as smooth as possible and honestly I felt great, worryingly great.  Without warning this ended as the end of the race drew near.

Im not going to lie, im no Matt Page, I was broken with four hours to go, I was holding on by a ledge and that ledge was getting smaller – the fire roads instead of being a distraction from the fun singletrack were now becoming lifelines allowing me to regain composure, eat and drink before the next bit that I had to be alert for. With two laps to go i was not only counting down the laps but the puddles – I can honestly say if it wasn’t for the support of Mark and everyone else on site I wouldn’t have felt comfortable riding those last few hours.

As they say a photo tells a thousand words, I think this one has a book in it…

All thats left are the thank you's of which there are many

Mark and Heather, possibly the best pit crew in the business.

Gareth, Alex, Scott Zoe and Mark, basically all at Loco Tuning.

Scott Cornish for creating art out of Rock Tape and generally holding my legs together for 24hrs

Simon, Bethan, Clara and the Bikeshed Wales lads

Jez @Trek.

Jon @ Scimitar.

Mud Dock Cycleworks

Cycleaid

Oh and Matt Carr, although my helmet does still smell of beer...

And many more that i have doubtless forgotten (And in some cases remembered ...) but you know who you are :-)

Talking with Frogs, the Male Ego and a Beginners Guide to Catching Colds - Dusk 'til Dawn 2011 Race Report

Dusk 'til Dawn is the big local enduro, so I have wanted to do well at this for a long time. It was also my first exposure to long distance racing a few years ago. On a dry and dusty night in 2009, I attempted the race with 2 chums and we had an awesome(ish) time. However, on the final lap, as the sun was rising, my blood sugar levels were crashing in a big way! I was rescued by a very chipper Chris Nightingale of Thetford MTB Racing who "scored" me a Torq bar - Torq bars are generally lovely, but this particular morning, I can assure you that nowhere in England did anyone have a sweeter taste in their mouth than I.

To make a change for an MTB race, I actually got to the venue more than 30 minutes before the start. With an 8PM kick off, I was at High Lodge a clear 6 hours before the start - very unusual for me. It was mainly at the persistence of some Iceni Velo chums you who were doing the mixed pairs, so I thought I would actually sort myself out and get their at a decent time. This gave me plenty of time to tinker with my bike and get in a pre-ride of the course.

During the pre-ride lap, we were passed by a chap I had seen at a few races over the past 6 months - I said "hello mate!" in my usual jovial way, but the response was a kinda "don't speak to me, scum boy" type of "hello". What happened next taught me a good deal about competitiveness and the male ego! Backtracking a little bit, this particular gentleman was at the Thetford Summer Enduro (by far the most fun/dry event of 2011) and he put in a stonking performance - finishing an unmentionable number of laps ahead of me, and even pulled a few laps clear of Mr Pointer - which, to be honest, usually requires either a motorcycle or a special prescription from a certain Dr. Ferrari. A few months later, at the 62 mile feed station on the Kielder 100, I stopped off to get a few supplies and I spotted a rather distinctive bicycle and recognised the owner. I said hi and mentioned the Thetford race - he didn't appear to be on similar form today, and was having his bike cleaned before hitching a ride on the broom wagon! I, on the other hand, was well up for more muddy race action, and said "Right! Time for some more - I am loving it today!" and kept the wheels turning until the finish line. Judging by his response in Thetford, I guess he had checked the results ;) Well...getting back to the pre-ride, I was crusing around with my triathlete chums, who were taking it easy (which kept me in check so I saved my legs for the actual racing - much needed). A few miles down the trail, we came to Tom's Bomb Hole. This tricky WW2 bomb crater had defeated me the previous weekend, and I just couldn't work out how to ride up the sharp, sandy exit, thus resorting to shamefully pushing my bike out. However, on this occasion, I aced the entrance to the crater, and spotted "our friend" loitering on the far side of the hole with his large group of chums, clearly waiting to see if other riders were getting out of the hole or not! Did I feel the pressure?! Competitive, moi?! I managed to carry the full momentum of my descent into the switchback exit of the hole, and absolutely nailed the line out - I don't think Danny Hart  himself could have done it any slicker! As I floated out of the exit, I took a glanced over at our friends, and they all turned away and rode off. Quite possibly the best feeling I have ever had on a mountain bike!

Towards the end of the lap, some light rain started to fall across the forest and we hoped it would bed down some of the dusty trails. It managed to do that, but rudely, it didn't stop there. All week the weather forecasts had said it would be clear - however on the Thursday, weather reports seem to start getting more pessimistic. The rumour was that it would be dry until midnight, then rain for the rest of the race. Sadly, the rain decided to start and about 5 and gradually began to get heavier. Dean had his kids this weekend as Mrs Dean was working, but he was still planning on starting the race 2 hours late, and then trying to beat me - apparently I needed at least a 2 hour head start! I gave Dean a call at 7 to recommend trunks and googles - which he seemed stumped by, due to the distinct lack of rain a few miles up the road in sunny Norwich. With the prospect of 10 hours of drivetrain-rotting mud and general dampness, Dean offered to just pit for me. Which was extremely kind, amazing and gave me extra motivation for the race. Dean was the perfect pitter - excellent mechanical skills, nutritionally wise, a seasoned enduroist and very, very positive.

The word was that the rain was going to really kick in around midnight, so my race strategy was to hit it hard in the first 4 hours whilst the trail was fast, then keep it going at a steady pace for the rest of the race. Having spent the week looking at the dry weather forecast, I was excited about doing a fast, dry race and trying to get in a massive number of laps. Despite a morning of being disappointed that it probably wasn't going to pan out like that, I managed to switch my perspective and realised that if it got nasty, a large percentage of people would just drop out of the race, and I could aim for a decent overall position.

Due to some serious faffing with getting the perfect position for my Exposure Joystick, I found myself towards the back of the start group. Note to self - if you get to a race early, sort your kit out before updating your facebook status! This was not too cool, as I planned on working my way through the traffic in order to avoid bottlenecks at the start of singletrack sections and the bomb holes. On the start line, I found myself next to Team Cycle Aid ally and generally nice chap, Mark Goodman of Weldtite Endurance. Fortunately, the extra start loop meant that we had about 3-4 miles of fire road before we were funnelled into the first section of singletrack. Mark is a very experienced racer, and knows a thing or two about weaving through a bunch - from the off, we were just giving it that little bit of extra power to slide through that pack and get a good position. Within a few minutes, we caught up with my cousin, Johnny V, and our three man group started to get towards the front. By the time we reached the first section of singletrack, everyone around us rode seamlessly into it and kept the pace going - ace! We were amongst friends. The same thing happened with the first and second bomb holes. Having spent the first hour of Kielder stopping and starting because I was stuck behind riders who couldn't ride up switchbacks, I was really pleased to be riding with people who were at a decent skill level and didn't keep stopping. Absolutely no disrespect to such riders who do stop (I was one of them until not that long ago!), but....when you're on a mission, a clear path ahead helps.

Half way around the first lap, Mark had gone on ahead, and I was starting to settle into my rhythm. The rain was still coming down gently, but the course was fine and the first lap rolled around without any problems. Quick bottle stop, and back out for more. I spent most of the second lap riding with Johnny V and we had a small group forming in our slipstream. Another lap, another bottle change. Kept eating the bars and gels. This time, Dean was in the pit area and in good spirits :) Johnny V didn't stop, so I had a quick change, then spent the rest of the lap trying to bridge back to him. Coming into the pits, I saw he was there, so quickly got my stuff together, Dean relubed the chain and we both went off into the night for lap 4. My memory is starting to get rather hazy about anything that happened after this point. I seem to remember yoyoing off the back of Johnny's wheel for part of the lap, and eventually just settled into my own pace and let him go. During the first half of the lap, we joked about riding the rest of the night together and just having a final sprint at the end.

I can't really remember much of what happened for the rest of the evening, other than it rained a lot more, the whole course got very slippery, I blew up on the last 2 laps, I kept chugging along and we loved every single moment. Well, every moment except falling off at the bottom of Tom's bomb hole on the penultimate lap. After I dragged myself out of the hole, I had a few minutes to collect my thoughts, scoff a gel and sip some cold, refreshing water. At this point, I had a good chat with the legendary Tina Potter; it was great to chat to a friend and someone else who was enjoying the adventure.

For the last two laps, Dean insisted I used his Exposure Six Pack and freshly charged Joystick on full chat. I know we are sponsored by Exposure, so not exactly going to say bad things about them, but I was blown away by how utterly awesome their lights were. It felt like I had one of those search lights you see in prison break movies when the wardens are searching for the cons as they scale the perimeter fence. By illuminating the entire fire road, I was able to pick the best lines and felt inspired to go faster. The Six Pack blasted the singletrack sections, and the Joystick filled in the details - kinda like the Simon & Garfunkel of MTB lights ;) We didn't just write to all the light companies and beg them to sponsor us - we hounded Exposure until they gave in! They rock. Exposure are the Aston Martin of mountain bike lights - perfect British engineering. If James Bond ever had to use a mountain bike for one of his missions, Q would whack a Six Pack on his handle bars (he'd probably try to pretend it was some top secret MI6 piece of kit, but we all know he was lying). Apparently, the boys and girls at CERN did some research and they found that light emitted from the Six Pack actually travels faster than the speed of normal light ;) Joking aside, these rock. Follow CycleAid on Facebook and we will be giving away some lights in the next few weeks.

There is no denying that in order to do a 12 hour race, you need to have the legs and lungs to keep going for that duration. But in order to keep "on it" for all that time, you have to have it together mentally. My confidence for the race was high - during the year I had made massive progress with my (previously dodgy) technical riding skills, knew my fitness was pretty good as I finished strong in the Thetford 10 hour enduro and I managed to survive (and enjoy) the wet Kielder 100. 12 hours is a long time to be alone on your bike in the rain, so you might as well enjoy it. My initial goal with Kielder this year was to go sub 10 hours. When the rain started, my goal soon slipped away. I was pretty despondent. Then it hit me - everyone else is hating this just as much as me, and if I stick at it, I am not sure too many else will. That instantly changed my mood, and I started smiling and kept the pedals turning. True enough, out of the 7-800 people who started, and I was one of only 177 people who made it to the end. Same thing happened here - the call of a warm sleeping bag screams loudly over the ambience of the solo tent! However, I was deaf to it - after each lap, I just wanted to refuel and get out. No change of clothes, no "proper food", no blood transfusions - in Tommy Simpson style, just put me back on the bike. And sure enough, one by one, riders started calling it a day (well, night). The first 6 hours had been pretty full on, but by about 4am, the course was decidedly empty, riders didn't seem to want to engage in my incessant nattering and the pit area was pretty much empty. The course was getting more and more slippery, my bike was snaking around and surfing skills would have gone a long way in being able to control the bike. It was nasty. Very nasty. By this point, I was absolutely loving it! The rain was so strong, sightings of frogs became as common as people. My girlfriend has a thing for frogs, so I convinced myself they were messengers sent from her to tell me to keep on it, keep pushing the pedals and do my best! Utter, utter nonsense, but it gave me that edge. In Kielder, Dean had quite a good chat with his son's smurf that was attached to his handle bars! Sounds completely mental, but stuff like that works. If you feeling happy, feeling the love, your legs will keep spinning and you will do your people proud.

My approach seems to be working, as about 200 people signed up in the solo category, and I came 19th.

During the night, a lot of team riders were saying to me "why do it solo?" - if you have to ask, you will never understand!