Mark and I came 2nd in the Men's 24-hour Pairs category, completing 29 laps (a total of 406km!), Anne came 2nd in the Veteran Women's 12-hour Solo category and Jon completed his very first 24-hour solo event and came 22nd. Full results are on the TimeLaps website.
Both Mark and I have worked hard this year to improve on our fitness, speed and endurance, after a few years of "just riding", entering events, and doing fairly well. Mark had already realised that his efforts were paying off by his victory with Andrew in the 12-hour singlespeed category at the Bristol Bike Fest, but up until the weekend, I was still waiting to see whether my efforts were worth it.
The course for the Twentyfour12 at Newnham Park was new to us and after a practice lap on Friday I knew we were in for a good event, even if it was a pretty hard 14km route, with about 340m climbing, including a steep tarmac climb at the start and the brutally steep, loose "Clif Bar" Climb around 9km in to the course. There was plenty to look forward to though with some fast singletrack descents and some nice rooty technical sections through the woodland.
I had the pleasure of lining up at the start line this time, and managed to get a good position up near the front. The pace for the first lap was fast, for a 24-hour event anyway, and I knew I couldn't keep it up, but it was hard not to get caught up in it. As it happens it gained us a very high position right from the start, and with Mark also putting in some very fast laps, we saw ourselves anywhere between 2nd and 4th for the first few hours of the race. After Mark punctured on Lap 10, we fell a couple of places to 6th but it was early days and we didn't panic.
By keeping our pace up we managed to climb back up to 3rd and from then on a very exciting battle started between us and the BikeShed/Bath University Team for 2nd place. We were as much as 16 minutes behind them after 8 hours, but we clawed our way back and with 6 hours to go we were just 22 seconds behind them. We knew after a while that a podium position for us was relatively safe as we were a couple of laps ahead of 4th position, so as long as we kept riding, we'd be ok. First place was pretty much decided as the Back on Track team were 2 laps ahead.
The time came to decide whether to settle down and see what happened and settle for 3rd, but hope for a 2nd, or to push it and fight for a 2nd place. I've hoped for a podium position for a long time, and during one lap I decided, why settle for 3rd when 2nd was within our capabilities? Our lap times weren't slowing down, my legs felt fine and Mark seemed to be in high spirits, so we went for it.
The tail end of the event was a bit of a blur for me, but all I was aware of was that we were eating away at the time difference for 2nd place after each lap. We finally passed the Bikeshed\Bath University team with less than 1.5 hours to go. Determined to not let that lead go, we gained 15 minutes on the team in 3 laps! I wasn't aware of this at the time, and when my time came to go out and complete the final "glory lap", I pushed as hard as I could. Normally, the final lap is a time to enjoy, take in the atmosphere, thank the marshals on your way around, and roll over the line.
It was the hardest I've ever ridden and I'm thrilled at what we achieved. The 24-hour pairs event is arguably the most difficult and demanding of the categories, due to the fast pace of the top teams and very little rest between laps. The event and our position will be something I will never forget.
A massive thanks goes to Mark for being an awesome team mate and for the encouraging notes he left me at team HQ! I hardly saw him during the event, which made it a pretty lonely event in terms of being with your team mate. However the few words shared at the change-over after each lap were enough to know how each of us felt and make each other push hard and keep going.
A huge thanks also goes to our support once again. We couldn't do it without Lou and Charlotte, and this weekend we also had Karen, who was looking after Kieran (who also completed his first 24-hour solo event, and crossed the line with Jon with an equal number of laps).
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