This was my first 24-hour solo event, and I surpassed all my expectations and finished in 4th place. I missed out on a podium, but I can't have everything and I'm not disappointed! Congratulations too to everyone else who was competing....
24-hour Men's Solo
Mark : 17 laps : 13th
Kieran : 16 laps : 16th
Al : 16 laps : 17th
Rich : 23 laps : 3rd
12-hour Men's Solo
Jon : 12 laps : 14th
12-hour Women's Solo
Anne : 10 laps : 4th
Zoe : 9 laps : 5th
12-hour Men's Pairs
Scott & Johnny : 16 laps : 10th
Full results and times are on Timelaps.
Louisa and I travelled down to Newnham Park in Plymouth on Thursday to make sure we had a nice camping spot along the track and also to leave ourselves enough time to settle in and relax before Saturday without the added stress of potential traffic jams on the M5 on a Friday. There were a number of us racing, and we managed to camp together making it a great spot for support and the usual trackside heckling.
I felt much more relaxed than I thought I would be until it hit me on Saturday morning and realising what I was about to attempt. Even then I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that I'd be riding, hopefully, non stop for 24 hours. I kept telling myself that I'd worked hard to train and prepare for this event and that I needed to be confident that my training would pay off.
The weather forecast wasn't great for the weekend but Saturday ended up quite pleasant and the course was reasonably dry. As midday approached, we lined up for the start, finding a nice position not too far from the front so that the first lap didn't end up being a stop start affair due to the bottlenecks. Having only raced a 24-hour event in a team and a pair, I found it quite alien not to go off as fast and as hard as I could from the start, and even more weird having Mark (the usual "other half", that sounds wrong, err, team mate?) on the course at the same time as me!
I felt great from the start and was lapping in around 50 minutes for the first 10 laps. Having no experience of 24-hour solo racing, I didn't have a race plan as such as I don't think I would have been able to handle things if that plan broke down and I'd have to adjust to another strategy during the race. I decided to keep going as long as I could and keep to my drinking and eating plan (which I did plan well beforehand).
As darkness fell, so did the rain unfortunately, and conditions deteriorated in an alarmingly short space of time. The course went from fairly dry and fast, to wet, slippery gloop. Worse still my race bike, a Cannondale Rush, which I'd done 90% of my off-road training on, proved to be useless once the conditions started to get sticky, and I was forced to ride my spare bike, a Genesis Altitude, which turned out to be far better in the mud but wasn't quite set up the way I'd have wanted it do be. That said, I had to get my bike cleaned after every other lap which was very frustrating as it forced me to stop, when all I wanted to do was to keep going. Those extra few minutes of stopping may have done me some good giving me that little bit more time to recover after each lap, who knows.
As the night wore on I still felt ok physically, keeping up a steady pace, but my mind started to wander and was tempting me to want to stop and sleep. Luckily I'd been told this would happen and I just needed to fight through the feeling, so I was kind of prepared for it. The course emptied considerably during the night and as the conditions deteriorated I found myself riding long sections of the course on my own. I was determined not to be one of the ones to stop and go to bed, and managed to shut my mind off to the fact that it was my bedtime and the course was a muddy bog.
Another person who seemed to have the same thinking as me was Rich Holmes, riding for Cyclesense and a mate of mine, and we rode long sections together throughout the night. I knew Rich was a couple of laps ahead of me at the time, although I don't think either of us knew what position we were in. Even though he was ahead he gave me that little bit extra to keep going. Hopefully I helped him out by doing the same. One thing I have learnt though is never to try working out how many hours of darkness that was left after 14 hours of riding. Neither one of us got to the right answer, as it was still pitch black at the time we thought dawn should be. Very confusing.
Day broke just after 5am and it was a very welcome sight, as I'd been told once daylight came, I would have ridden through the hardest part of the race. That said, I still had 7 hours to go, so I plodded on. Before starting the race I'd asked Lou not to let me know my position, because if I found I was trailing at the back I'd get demoralised and if I was up near the front I'd push myself too hard too early to stay up there and burn up before the end. At around 6am (possibly, it could have been 10am) I wanted to know where I stood and to find out I was in 4th, just a lap behind Rich in 3rd was a huge boost. I was a lap in front of 5th so by mid morning I knew I was relatively safe, but I kept going and my lap times started getting steadily quicker towards the end.
With half an hour to go before 12, Rich called it a day as his 3rd place was safe, as was my 4th, but by then I'd made it my mission to complete the race with the same number of laps as him. I don't know why. So as I came around to Team HQ on my 22nd lap to a huge round of applause from everyone, I was then met with some confused faces when I asked Lou to pass me a fresh bottle and gels and I carried on going for another lap. Even more confused I think was the commentator at the finish line when I crossed the finish line at 11:45 and kept on going, when I could have just stopped and settled with 22 laps. I was given a huge cheer from the crowd that had gathered to watch the first finishers, and that was enough to get me going for one final lap.
The last lap was great, it had dried up considerably and the course was pretty fast once again. I gave my usual last-lap "thanks" to all the marshals and encouragement to the riders left on the course on their last lap. The feeling I had when I came back in to the event arena was phenomenal, not something I was prepared for. It was a mixture of relief, achievement, tiredness, a proper rollercoaster of emotions.
Lou was the first person I managed to focus on properly after I crossed the line and I gave her a big, tired and very muddy hug. I couldn't have done the race without her as she is such a massive support, along with the other WAGs (Wives and Girlfriends to those who don't know!) who were supporting us all. She's also been very patient and supportive over the last few months whilst I've been training for this, for which I appreciate.
I've just realised this entry is quite a long one, for which I apologise, but it was a long race! Now that I've got a 24-hour solo out of my system as it were, which was why I did it in the first place, looking back I really enjoyed it, and there wasn't one moment in the 24 hours where I wanted to quit, I'm now thinking not "if" I'll do another one, but "when" and "where".
One last thing.... huge thanks to Dave Buchanan and Jo ("Mrs" Dave Buchanan) for all their advice and encouragement before the race, and for the lights loan, and to Matt Page (Wiggle) for his advice on all sorts of things to do with 24-hour racing. It's really appreciated.
Some things that I found invaluable for my 24-hour solo effort....
* A good pair of racing socks, courtesy of our fashion guru, Scott
* 1 pot of Chamois cream
* 1 pot of Anti Monkey-Butt Powder and plenty of applications
* 6am pot of rice pudding
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