Video from Leadville 100 2012

Oh how I suffered.

Leadville Trail 100: I'm In

About two weeks ago I got the email telling me I had a place through the Lottery. I paid $15 last year thinking if I get a place, cool if I don't, I don't. This year I was already planning to Colorado to visit family. So I am over the bloody Moon as you might be expected. It's not the best race in the World but if I'm in town I sure as hell would love to do it. Riders I know who have done it say it's good but the Alpine Odyssey 100 out of Crested Butte is a better one so I thought I'd do that as well.

With my entry done online the chances of getting in via the lotto were slim. I thought it would be great to try and qualify through the Alpine Odyssey 100 which was on last day of July in 2011. Unfortunately in 2012 they had moved it to mid September the very same day as the Montane Kielder 100 and I would be back in the UK for almost two weeks for sure.
Anyway I got a Leadville entry and I am super happy.

Map of the course (click to see full size)

 I've been training hard for the 24hrs of Exposure. I will have great endurance but if you have a look the Profile below the highest point of the race is at 12,612ft. Now I live at sea level. I've never stood on ground that high let alone ridden or race a bike that high.

Lucky for me I have some family (distant through marriage) that live at about 8,000ft. Ethan Passant who has finished the leadville in the top 4 in the past in 7:27:50 and was 3rd to the Mexican Border in the 2011 Tour Divide just happens to be married to my brother in law Thomas's sister. Well the nice chap via Facebook has kinda agree'd to give me a bit of a hand with my training. 12,600 ft for God's sake. This is going to be fun yeah?

Profile of the course (click to see full size)

So how do you train for a race that is at Altitude? One thing I have is a bit of time out there before the race. About 2 weeks. I will be staying near Boulder for most of it which is high enough itself I guess. One bike my Scott Scale 29er. I guess I will slap some road tyres on it and get out on the road a bit in the mountains.

Not only do I have to ride 100miles at Altitude I can't hang about. I don't know if it's a good thing but I will probably have a bus to wisk me off to Vegas straight after the race. I'm trying to get my Brother in Law Thomas to do the Leadville 10k run the following day so I don't have to rush away.

The Leadville is steeped in American MTB history I guess. It's been running since 1994 which was about when I got my 1st MTB and there have been some pretty famous chaps racing it. Floyd Landis came 2nd in 2007, Lance came 2nd in 2008  then won it in 2009, Levi Leipheimer won it in 2010 and Todd Wells last year. In fact last year it seems lots of the quicker American XC racers turned up. Under 8hrs used to get you in the top 20. Last year that was the top 80. Rebecca Rusch seems to be winning it a lot in the ladies race. One thing I've noticed or not noticed is many Brits doing it. Well there is one this year and he's a Welshman. I guess I better take a massive Welsh Flag with me.

But before this I have hundreds of miles of racing to do. But can I beat 8hrs at the Leadville 100?

Leadville 100 Website

Finally the first race of the Season: Wentwood50

I'm lucky that I even got to the start of the race yesterday morning. I entered it late and missed out on an entry. When I was in Spain sunning myself I received an email from the organiser asking me if I wanted to take a place and swap names with someone. I made sure I had someone to look after my kids and accepted. Getting back from holiday we found out that my wife's Mum had been taken ill.
It wasn't until fairly late on Saturday evening did I find out that I could ride. I managed to get a babysitter.
I got to the start and went signed on. It was bloody cold standing in the queue but it went smoothly which was great for a 1st time event. The tent did smell of dog poo though. Wasn't nice. We were called for the start at about 10:20 for a 10:30 START. I was pretty cold but I knew we had some climbing to do from the gun and I'd soon warm up. If I'd been wearing what some of the guys were wearing I'd soon be over heating.
I didn't get to do a warm up as I had to drop my kids at the babysitter as late as possible. I got dressed, fixed up my bike just in time. Not ideal but hey you take what you have.
The start was on the road (which were closed for the start and finish) We went straight up the road for a few miles to the top of the ridge and into the forest. I was near the front on the road but not at the front. With no I was warming up nicely and made sure I didn't over do it early on. This was my first race of the year and only forth ride in almost 8 weeks.
I ended up in a small group of around 6-7 riders through the first few KM off road. At one point I was just following wheels and who ever was up the front of our group had taken us off course. I think a few of us had gone the wrong way as we were alerted by riders coming up the hill we were going down asking if we had seen the sign. Err nope. Anyway we soon found it. You really had to keep an eye out for the arrows. They were big and yellow but somehow we were still missing them. I don't know how we missed them to be honest as they were pretty clear but we were missing them.
I was enjoying myself but my body wasn't. Me legs were working OK but my arms, shoulders and back were aching. For some bizzare reason I was convinced I'd put my Skins compression tights on backwards. There seems to be too much padding at the front. All I had done was failed to pull them up enough. The shorts became a pain as I was looking for negatives. catching on my saddle. Fact is I was very rusty offroad. My skills are not the great at the best of times but pretty much two months without any off road riding I was struggling. I fell off whilst trying to put an empty gel pack in my pocket (I wish everyone else would have tried as much as me keeping the place tidy).
On the up hills as normal I would pull away from my group. then on the technical downhills they would catch me up. I really need to get out and practice more on the technical stuff.
about 2/3 through the race the small group of three i was with turned wrong again. This time we were defiantly off course and had clearly missed out some course. There were checkpoints around 3 in all for the 50km course. I had all three. I wasn't about to cheat but it was hard to find where we went wrong. A rider going the other way told us we had missed out 7km. turned out it was less than a km. I'd done more than that wrong already.
The great thing about the route which also was probably where so many went wrong is with some of it the route was natural. There was no obvious trail but easy to go wrong. It was great. With about 8km to the finish we had a long fireroad climb which then turned into a steep road climb. being local i knew this climb well. My head went. I was tired. The lack of fitness was showing. I got to the top of the hill knowing the way home was all downhill. Big ring the whole way.

I finished the 50km in about 3hrs 10. So way down. I didn't push myself too much but I clearly have a lot of work to do before my 1st 24hr race in 9 weeks time. basically I am in the shit. The 7 weeks of no riding has put me somewhere I haven't been for a long time. Can I do it YES I CAN

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/72107896

Pics and results up soon on http://www.wentwood50.co.uk/ I loved the event. Very well organised with the food stations and excellent route. I will be back next year for the event and back up Wentwood forest in a few weeks for a ride.

The Blackpark XC next week. Can't wait

Brass Monkey Round 2 - Final race of 2010

The snow has stopped, the rain came and what did it leave us? Ice. For the week leading up to the race the course builders spent a lot of time clearing the snow from the single track. The weather on the day was light rain. So the course turned from firm with the ice to soft. As I had just recovered from a bad chest cold I didn't have the chance to test my legs before the race. I'd not been on a bike in over 10 days. I thought it best not to bother riding the course as to not waste energy. I did have a little practice on the 1st hundred or so meters of single track. I'd pretty made up my mind that I was there to make up the numbers and to give myself a good 4hrs training in race conditions.

I went through my normal warm up routine of a short ride a few sprints and a bit of a stretch. Realise that I wasn't warm enough in what I was wearing so I took off my club jersey and replaced it with my Trusty Assos 851 Jacket. A little overkill maybe but I would be toasty what ever the elements gave me. 

I placed my 4 water bottles in the feed zone with a few tools, some lube for my chain and then we gathered at the start. As I had made up my mind I wasn't going to give it full gas i didn't start right up the front. No need to go into the red early on for no reason. It didn't matter anyway as the start had two very wide tracks before the bottle neck of the 1st bit of single track. I think I must have stood there like a lemon for about 20 seconds waiting to get on the single track.

The course was really really fun. There was loads of nice single track which for the 1st three laps I did was excellent. Well done on the Course Builders behalf as they made my day. There were two big drop offs which I rode for the 1st three laps. One was very steep at the top. (I'm no fan of drop offs) The Small amounts of fire track always led to the nice single track and the fire track was always short but steep. 

Anyway How was I doing, first lap I felt great there were no surprises other than I took the wrong line at one point and stacked it into a bush. Quickly back on the bike and onwards. The 1st time over the 2nd of the big drop offs came as a shock. Nothing went wrong but I wasn't at all relaxed and could have easily stacked it. My forks felt a little soft and I was sure I didn't have enough rebound so I stopped and adjusted it. Lap finished and I started feeling great. Although I felt good on the 1st lap my legs did feel a bit rusty. 

On the second lap I felt really good. Legs relaxed and I pressed on a bit harder. I slipped on one of the smaller drops and went off the bike to the side. I held onto one of my bar ends and dragged the bike down with me running. In one fluid movement I managed to remount the bike and ride away as if nothing had happened. (Why doesn't that always happen instead of landing on the deck in a heap?)

Third lap went well to start with. I'd taken on a new bottle at the start of the lap and shoved a few gels down. One thing that was obvious though was that the mud was getting thicker and harder to ride through. Starting the 4th lap I realised that if I kept the pace I was doing up I'd end up getting to the finish line with about 10 mins spare and would have to do a sixth. With all the mud and that I eased off and took it easy. Not that it was easy. The second half of the 4th lap and the 5th were Hell. The mud was porridge like. My pace got slower and slower with my final lap almost 25mins slower than my 1st. 

Finishing was a relief. I normally don't feel that tired after doing 8hrs in the saddle but all in all I'm happy with how things went. It was an excellent days training in race conditions. I wouldn't have ridden that hard if I was out on the hills on my own. I went through a set of disk pads that had just been replaced with only an icy 30miles ride where I barely used the brakes. Good news is my drive train looks OK so it didn't cost me too much.

Today the day after I have just sat in the house watching films and servicing my bike all day wearing my Skins Compression tights. Knackered. I hear from the Twitter world that everyone else is tired too. God know how I will feel on Tuesday after riding the South Downs Way on Monday.

Results 19th in the 4hr Mens race. I wish I hadn't eased of and managed to do a 6th lap. 

Check out the links from Joolze Dymond Photography below

Pic 1 This bit of single track was great fun

Pic 2 I love this pic I might buy it off Joolz

Pic 3

Pic 4 The mud

Pic 5 More mud

My shoes How random

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/72108082

Bloody glad I took my training tyres off. The Nobby Nicks would have been murder in that mud. The Rocket Rons were perfect. Full on mud tyres would have been too slow on the rest of the course.

The Kielder 100 is sooner than I thought

Camping at Mayhem 2010

The Kielder 100 is on the 1st weekend of September. I had already entered the event almost a year in advance.  Just seen a tweet from the organiser Paul Davis of SIS Events that the event is a third full already, that the B&Bs are already fully booked and that the campsites are already taking bookings. I guess I should have seen that coming. I will be camping for sure. It's the last week of the school holidays & my kids have never been to Scotland. 
So the massive family tent I bought for times such as these will be put to good use again. 
I guess preparation such as booking things like this is as important as the training. Imagine I get through the entry lottery for the Leadville 100 entry. Then that will take some organising. That event is in Colorado.

So what's the plan for 2011

For starters I have to finish off 2010 with a good solid base of training miles in my legs. I've never raced over 6hrs before so it's important to get the miles in. Just after Christmas I have a 4hr Enduro planned. Will be good to race the end of the year with a bit of Christmas spirit. 
A trip up to Newcastleton on the Scottish border might be on the cards in January to recce the area used for my main targets of the year which are the 24hrs of Exposure and the Mondane Kielder 100. That should be a good weekends training and some cold camping. 
24hrs of Exposure, this the British 24hrs solo champs. I was told this is the best one to do as your first solo 24hr as it has a Rookie category and you get very good support. The entry fee is pretty high but you get looked after in this race rather than being left to your own devices (I hope I haven't got that bit wrong). It's a solo only race so there will  It's all the way up north on the border between England and Scotland in a place called Newcastleton. Looks a great place to spend a few days. I've no idea right now what I'm going to have to do to get myself round this course for 24hrs either mentally or physically. I should hope to have sorted that out in the next six months. 

The long climb on the final lap at Mayhem

Next on the plan is the OS Mountain Mayhem. Not sure if I should ride it solo or as part of a team. I really enjoyed it last year. I will have to make up my mind early spring as when the entry opens you have to be quick to get in this one. The course at Eastnoor Castle suits me well as it's  not very technical and I've not got the sharpest skills on the track (something I need to work on). 
The Bontrager Twentyfour12 is up next where I have already entered the 12hr event. I figured that you should keep these 24hr efforts down to just one or two a season. I'm sure it takes a lot out of you. Wiggle's Matt Page who is the current British 24hr champ says it takes a good 4-6weeks to recover from your efforts in a 24hr race. That sounds Horrific to be honest. It takes me a week to recover from a 5 day stage race on the road. 
I have a long break then from the long races until Mondane Kielder 100 which is a 100mile race that is one in one lap. It's based back up in Newcastleton up on the Scottish Boarders again. Now I know I can do this one well. I certainly will have the endurance to do this by September. You'd think so after have possibly two 24hrs and a 12hr under my belt. Hopefully I will retain some speed by racing as many shorter XC races as possible. I'm lucky I'm based in Newport, South Wales and London. Welsh Series early in the season mixed with the Gorricks and Beastway Series midweek after work on a Wednesday.
Hopefully there is no clash of dates between the Breacon Beast and the Mondane Kielder 100 or I maybe tempted to give the Manx End 2 End a crack which looks fantastic.
Sounds like a good plan at the moment. I might have to do a few road races. I still haven't won a road race and I've dropped down to a 3rd cat on the road after a big fat zero points for last season. Well it helps if you race and I only entered two races finishing neither (puncture & mechanical).
At a grand old 36 years, I'm in the Masters Category in mountain biking 30-39. I like the age group racing. I'm not sure British Cycling are keeping the age category for next season. Rumours say no. Fingers crossed it stays. For the Enduro, 12 & 24hr events its 18-39 then 40+ so it's only for the shorter XC races will it effect me. 

So I've got a Mountain Bike (What next?)

Coming down off the Gap Road
Brecon Beast 2010

Last year I decided that I would try something else. I had become a little tired of road racing and wanted something that was a bit more fun. Don't get me wrong, I love road racing but as I live between London and South Wales I was finding it a bit crap. I have the Cwmcarn Twrch Trail (I'll get back to that) right on my doorstep on the weekends and I thought I'd get myself a MTB. I really didn't intend to race just have a bit of fun. 

Before my bike had arrived I had borrowed a bike off a colleague and took it up Cwmcarn. Next thing I know I've entered the OS Mountain Mayhem 24hr race as part of a Mixed Team of 5 & had started to plan my season. So I entered a mix of XC races & Enduros.

I was into the MTB so much I only did two road races all season. I do plan to do more road races in 2011 but more for training than anything. 

I did the North East London based Beastway series which started very well for me. 1st race I was second in Masters. I was leading until I did my trademark one crash of the race. Most of the series I was in the top 4 or 5 with the odd week of Hell due to a puncture or broken ribs. Right in the middle of the Beastway series was the OS Mountain Mayhem 24hr. I raced this as part of a team. It was bloody awesome. I can't believe how much fun it was and how hard it was. I was riding for my club Norwood Paragon CC. A team of 5. 4 boys and one bloody fast Lady called Kaye. We did bloody good considering Doc broke his thumb. I had my trademark crash and Adam slept in a bit late one lap. We came 10th which wasn't bad considering. I saw the state of the solo guys and thought they looked a right mess. No way would I be stupid enough to try that.

I then did a few of the local races in Surrey which were pretty cool. 

An early round of Beastway

The high & low point of my season were the Enduros all the races i had done so far were no more than two hours long. The Low point was the 75km Big Welsh Enduro in Margam Park. I thought I was fit until I turned up to this race. Boy I had a shock. I wasn't last but not far off. If it hadn't been for some friends cheering me on I would have packed. 
The high point was the Brecon Beast which was 110km and up and over the Brecon Beacons mtns. I really enjoyed it. I was actually competitive pretty much the whole way round until I snapped a chain. When I crossed the line I was told I was 8th. confusion with the results puts me outside the top 20 but I know where I came. I suffered the whole way round but loved every minute of it. It was in the final kms of this race I pretty much decided that I was going to try a 24hr Solo. 

So there were are, I said it 24hr solo. At the London Cycle Show the XC Racer Shop announced that the entries for the 24hrs of Exposure and the Mondane Kielder 100 so I entered them both. Jump in both feet first, might as well and so it starts......


Better get training!