Piecing it back together

I had a scan this week, and all appears fine. That means more tests, but I'm used to that so it doesn't worry me. I'll have 2 or 3 days off of training at the end of the month for scope investigations, but that's fine too.

But I'm starting to feel a bit better now and managed to get out for some exercise this weekend.

I don't run because my knees are older than me. But I fancied a little run in my new offroad shoes, so Jo took me around Cwmcarn on the singletrack. The climbs were great, but I forgot just how much the downhills and the eccentric loading caused by that were going to hurt...

...Jo laughed at me!

In fact, she laughed at me for the rest of the day as I hobbled around the house, in pain.

She laughed even more at 7am today as I struggled to get up and get down the stairs.

Laughed like a drain, she did.

So she took me out for a ride with our old friends from Rush Cycles in Bridgend, to suss out part of an enduro that they have planned for next year. I was ok on the bike after about 30mins and after an hour I could stand up without wincing at my quads pain.

3 1/2 hours later and I felt great. Then I got off of my bike, and all of my abject and painful misery returned.

I made it to the cafe. The council cafe in Afan is the best around there and it was nice to have a proper milky coffee. Afterwards, I struggled to get to the car.

Running is a stupid idea.

But I enjoyed it!!

Just get on with it.

This last 2 weeks has been kind of slow. I've hardly been on the bike as I've been trying to recover from both Relentless24, and a touch of jaundice that I suffered after the race.

I did do a cyclo-cross race today, though, and got thoroughly trounced. They go scary fast right from the start. It was superb fun and I'm hooked. I'll never be any good at it, but hope that it will give me a quicker start in long events that I prefer to ride.

Must buy a bike.

Time to reflect...

... My body is a bit of a wreck and shows some scars. But cycling is now my lifeline as I can do it, quite well, without pain or problems unless of course I do a 12 or 24 solo. They hurt, no matter what.

In one of my old jobs they used to call me "The Highlander" because they reckoned I should be 200years old to gain the experiences in life I have had. I liked that.

Since my illness (at 23 to 24 1/2), subsequent recovery and rebuilding, I've done more than my fair share of sports, pastimes and Higher Education and they have taken a fair toll on my body. I was busy before that, but there is nothing that gives you a "live each day like it's your last" attitude than getting close to the day where people worry about your longevity, to increase your need for experiences.

Applying yourself fully to various things can make Mr Average look a bit bigger than he may be, but he is still Mr Average. It took me a long time to "find" cycling, and this is where I'll stay.

I loves it.

Would I change anything in my past? The Illness? The multiple surgeries? The Chemo? The sports?

Nope. It's made me who I am, and I think I'm doing well now.

Well,I suppose I could do with having my nice shoulder and arm muscles back, from my earlier days, but then I'd have to lug them about on the bike!

Now all I need to do is get over this wee sporadic illness which I think may see me having surgery, again.

Hopefully it'll be quick, as I have training to do.

That's a pretty melancholic entry, but I'm in a reflective mood.

You really gotta try CX!!

The season finale: The monkey on who's back?

2 Butts' HQ
Well, that's the season over.

It's been a bit quiet on here, of late, but we'll get to that later.

The date was the 10th of October and it was the final time that the team would get together, officially, this year. Josh and I were racing solo 24 and were greatly looking forward to it.

Relentless 24 was on!!

This was Josh' first ever solo attempt and I must admit to being worried about him, and what would happen to his future, if it went wrong for him. He's slain a lot of demons this year. I knew he could do it, physically, but worried if he had had too many changes in his life this year for him to prepare properly for the mental torture that only a solo 24 can deliver.

We needn't have worried.

I, on the other hand, had a bit of a mare for a short while. It became apparent that the team weren't worried about my ability to finish and I'm glad about the fact that they had faith in me.

The venue was the Nevis Range Complex at the foot of Aonach Mor, and the World Cup Doonhill and XC tracks. There is some proper lumpy and gnarly stuff there, and it looks great. It's just a pity that we couldn't play on it.

Next time...

No Fuss Events had organised Relentless24 amongst their other classics like 10 Under The Ben, 10 More at Moray, and the ridiculous Ben Nevis Triathlon. My mrs wants to do that one, but I've banned her from it until her tendons catch up with her sports specific muscle gains from the increased running she's doing these days.

So, Jo, Rich, Rob, Tim (Josh' Dad), Zoe, Doug (from Nevis Cycles) and I pitched up and got everything ready. Clive couldn't come due to prior arrangements, but he was in my head, shouting at me. I must ask him to stop.

The team, except Clive

Josh and I lined up at the front of the start and got ready for the onslaught to follow. We were counted down, very very slowly, by Frazer and eventually got into our 300m run to the bikes. We both had a good start, and got away without being held up anywhere.

The weather (from solo memory- so not the most dependable, by a long chalk) was sort of non-descript for the first few hours. It was chilly with a blank grey sky and a little bit of wind. It would have been nice if it had stayed like that but that doesn't happen in the UK, especially when you are halfway up one of it's biggest hills. I always remember the Grey Corries seemingly being the first to drop into good winter condition and the ice tools coming out there first.

After a few hours it started to get windy and rainy and the temperature seemed to drop like a stone. Then it got dark, colder, and windier for the rest of the night, with the addition of quite a bit of rain and some sleet thrown in for good measure. It was horrible, but that didn't matter as it was the same for everybody.

Sheesh! It got cold and really quite muddy. I ran a crossmark front and a monorail rear which both behaved superbly and are my new favourite combo.

The race itself was incredibly well natured and run. Everybody was there for a good time and everyone was really polite. Most folk were Scottish, so what did you expect?

8hrs in (again from failing memory) and my stomach backed up.This is the point where my metabolism usually kicks in and I settle in for the long race. But I'm not used to this gastric distress anymore, as my nutrition hasn't been a problem for a good while. There is a good reason for it, which I tried to force my way past and which meant I shouldn't really be racing, but never mind. I had demons and back hugging monkeys to slay due to SITS this year. Nothing was going to stop me.

My pace slowed a bit but I kept going like a brave little soldier: My mum used to say that to me.

In hindsight, I had planned to lap at 1hr (or so) after a fast first lap to get out of the way of the crowds. I went a good bit quicker than that, and suffered the consequences later.

At one point in the race, I came in feeling resigned to the fact that I was going to slow down even further. Rob came around, and was all understanding about my plight. He's been there a hundred times himself. He said to me, "Just walk it, mate. You'll still be doing 4 miles and hour or so".

He wound me up, and he knew it. He knows what he's doing.

"Stuff that!" I thought. "I'll ride my bike, that's why I'm here."

So I silently stood up whilst finishing my cuppasoup, which was helping my tummy a bit, and walked up the first climb. At the top, I got on and stayed on. My lap times stayed a little slower but a slow lap is better than no lap.

The feeling you get when you know you've overcome something quite so deeply sabotaging, as the misery when things are going wrong in a solo, is one of complete satisfaction allied to a certain relaxation. All the stressors, intrinsic to your present plight, seem to evaporate and leave you feeling stronger.

That was a bit of a mouthful: it's empowering, that's all!

This is what we aim for as 24hr riders- apart from the win, of course. I was a lucky boy, really!

Me looking sexy after the race. Hmm?

I was also lucky to have Jo and the team waiting each time I popped around. They cheered me up as I wasn't very well.

The guys thought that I only had to do one lap more so I set off and was quite quickly caught by Josh (ex-wash) who I couldn't catch, obviously. So he finished the lap with me, until we got to a lone figure stood in mud at the bottom of the windy and open downhill. It was Rob, and he shouted out, "You have to do another lap, sorry, Dave Powell is catching up."

Dammit.

So I stood up and peddled a bit harder. I forgot my discomfort and just kept going as quickly as I could. It wasn't very quick though. My 21st lap was finished with me wretching and coughing my empty guts up, but I managed to smile for the camera!!

I smiled shortly after the finish, honest


Josh won the senior solo and I was second. It's one of my worst performances but has more plusses to be gained from experiencing my mental strength at it's most potent (and most needed). I'm quite happy.

Josh still had the energy to act like a monkey!

I'm still not sure that I should have been there, though.

That is real pain etched on my face. Rob MADE me bend my legs!

There may have been monkeys on the podium background, but there were none on my back.

Thanks for following this year. It's time to start the preparation for next years' BIG ride: once my doctor starts talking to me again.

It could make your eyes water

The week away in Morzine was good for the soul and also my legs and skills, it seems.

Chris hadn't been too bothered about my performing at my best (peaking) for Torq 12:12. This is a 12hr race in The Gorrick area.

It was actually held and based in the same field and surrounding areas where I did my Royal Engineers Basic Training in Gibraltar Barracks, 22years ago. I felt a bit old, but somehow revitalised.

Memories of creating an ambush in a gully, and getting a kicking when we got it wrong.

Happy days.

Right; the race!

It had been a busy week for me with work and home life, and my telling everyone to buy this month's MBR because they printed a lovely piece written about me by a Lady called Alexandra. They also used WC2C Pap, Matt Cope's, photo's.

Major result! Great thanks to all involved.

Why are these experiences always humbling?

So, back to the race, again, and I only got there on Sunday Morning, in time to set up my bikes and for Rob (Da Manager) to finalise the pit in his bid to keep me going strong.

The course was great fun, and there were some real comedy offs, and some painful ones, in the dusty conditions. It actually rode like mud since it was so deep and the track was probably about 80% singletrack.

It was going well and I was keeping a steady pace, passing team riders and fellow soloists. One guy kept shooting off when I rode up behind him. Then he'd slow down and I'd catch him up again, so he'd shoot off. I pushed a wee bit and just sat behind him, as he seemed to ride a little raggedly when he got excited.

Poor guy went over the bars at one point, and I felt a bit guilty. I stopped to check he was ok but he wasn't much for conversation, so after a couple of cursory words in which he proved he was ok, I left and carried on. He must have hurt himself because I lapped him as he lurked at the end with his mate, 2hrs later.

At about the 4hr mark I had a bit of a problem: my favourite and oldest saddle snapped! I was only 10 or 15mins into the lap. So I picked the saddle up and jammed it in the front of my skins, and clipped the saddlebag around my wrist.

The next 30-40mins were done in "stood-up" mode and my pulse was way too high. Joolze got a photo of me, and I had to shout out, "It's a saddle, I promise!" My eyes were starting to water a bit.

It took probably around 3hrs to get over that because my legs were killing me for that period, but the lap times stayed consistant.

In addition to the seat, both of my bikes had problems with seatposts slipping, no matter how tight I had the seat tube clamp. I managed to get my saddle bag undone, extract my multitool, then tighten my seatpost after pulling it up a few millimeters; WITHOUT STOPPING! I was all over the place, mind you. I stopped after that to tighten it up, because I scared myself the first time.

My bikes are going to have a liberal treatment with degreasers this week, because it cost me around another 15 minutes over the race period. I know what the problem was, but can't own up to it quite yet.

No matter what happened though, my times were consistant.

Nutrition? Perfect!

Mental status and preparation? Bang on!

I've never ridden so fast for so long. I think I found another gear!

My coach is the business!

My support and Nutritionist support (Zoe) was awesome too.

5th place, which could easily have been improved upon.

Happy days!

Unfortunately, I have no photos as I was a bit busy.

2 races to go and then it's back to preparation for a BIG ride, next year, as mentioned in MBR.

Holiday time

Been a bit quiet, of late.

That's because I've been on holiday hammering downhill and xc in Morzine.

Eating cheese, sausages and lots of posh food was my task in hand. I did it well.

We also managed to do a few high quality training rides, at stupid o'clock in the morning befre spending the day out on the hills with Jo. This was hard because the bed was very comfortable.

One training ride was 2 times 20mins up an 800m climb in granny gear front and rear. So I did it 2 days in a row, then spent 6hrs riding.

Priceless.

Posturing, Pestering, Peering and Humbling.

Sleepless turned out to be quite a race, but I wasn't really a part of it, this year.

A tight twisty course, with plenty to keep the mind occupied, and some passing places just where you thought there weren't any.

Jo and I pulled up on Thursday night and set up camp.

Friday was a chilled out day- she went to buy a car and I kept well away. I just did my practice loop and fiddled with bikes, listened to music and met up with some friends.

Friday night and the other racers started turning up, all eager to impress and also to check out the competition.

James Leavesley popped in for a coffee and a good chat. But he was digging, cheeky boy. "How much training have you done?" etc.

"Tonnes."

He then told me how he's 10 years younger than me. Do I still like this guy?

I'm not sure he saw me as a threat as such, but he was checking me out. I found that to be a bit of a confidence boost, as nobody was ever bothered about me before, really. Well, no, that's wrong. James has always been interested and supportive.

Rob Dean turned up too. He's a big bloke, and recently completed the South Downs' Double in under 20 hours. He WAS a big rival. He was a bit like me, keen to say that he was here to win, but nice and non-threatening if that makes sense. Exposure lights have sort of taken him under their wing, so I knew he'd be ok.

Saturday morning and one of my inspirations turned up for a wee chat. Steve Heading is a monster mile muncher and well respected by all who know him. He doesn't stop riding, he doesn't have to. He just keeps going, super steadily paced and annoyingly quick. He gets it done, whatever it is.

Keep an eye out for Steve and his input into cycling progression.

So I pop my head out of "Blanche HQ" (my gnarlavan) into the solo area, to view the delights before me. Most of the "threats" were hanging about each other, and sort of applying friendly posturing techniques during their pre-race conversations. Invisible heckles were being exhibited purely in the body language. These guys were going to go out and knock hell out of each other. I could just see it happening.

Jo then remembered that our team name hadn't been on the start list, so I asked her to make sure that Vince Cox the commentator had some details about me and the team so he could say hello as I rode past.

Vince is going to ride around the world, next year.

Gulp.

How's that for inspiration? What's more is that he's planning on arranging a race around the world, to finish at a point that coincides with the Olympic Opening Ceremony in London.

Wow!

I wonder if I could get 5 months off of work...

Anyway, Jo went up to talk to him and tell him about...

...He knew all about me, the 7DS and had followed our progress before and after the rides. He knew about the 7DS. He knew I'd been I'll. He knew more than me.

I'm not used to that sort of thing, and although we sing and dance on these blogs, in a self-obsessed manner, about what the human machine can do and what we plan to do, you are never sure if anybody is actually listening.

Vince was genuinely interested.

The reasons for the 7DS came flooding back to me: If one person has found any form of inspiration from what has been done on this website, or others, then we're doing the right thing.

When Jo came back to say what he had said, I was humbled. I really felt like, I don't know, a very minor ambassador for the sport or something like that. It made me feel somehow how smaller, but with the possibility of a growing presence within racing.

We are all ambassadors when we don a team jersey but I felt out of my depth, a bit.

Never mind. Back to the task in hand.

15mins before the start. Pre-load drink in hand

Line up on the start line. Right at the front.

There are a lot of photographers about, try not to look too nervous.

Looking back, all the solo guys are behind me, and James winks at me as if to say, "You're in for it."

"Ignore it Dave, ride your own race", says Coach Chris Eatough in the back of my mind.

Vince looks at me and starts to talk about the Coast to coast over the Tannoy, to all the folk that came to watch the melee that is the start of a 24hr race.

He walks towards, me.

I smile, and shrink behind some other guys on the start line. If he had been coming up for a chat, which I doubt, he changed his mind when he saw the fear on my face.

The hooter goes off, and the run starts. James runs past and pinches my bum! I had planned to follow him on the run anyway, so that I got the right pace as the last time I did a Le mans start I was 2 stone heavier.

Jo Reckons we were back with the first 20 runners.

Crikey.

We race off on the bike and up the first climb. I let all the solo riders rip off, and watch as they keep looking back at each other to make sure that they stayed in front.

I sat back, and let them push on. I had time to work: 24hrs to be exact(ish).

At the end of the first slippy downhill, there were bodies everywhere. Then one of the solo riders rode past and smiled at me as he shouted, "C'mon! This is the easy bit!"

I let him go on too. These guys seemed to want to race right from the start, and I only know 2 or 3 people who can actually do that. James is one of them, and I'm not.

The hours run on, and the gap grew between me and them for about 4hrs or 6hrs. Then it started to shrink, and people in front started to drop out. At 8hrs I was 9th, I think, and felt well and truly settled into my rhythm. I was keeping my lap times to within a minute of each other and was reeling them in, and enjoying it.

My nutrition was bang on. I'm a liquid diet man, on a bike, and it was working nicely. I had no stomach issues, so my pace was just about bang on, too. The long haul was upon us.

At 12hrs in (lap 14?-I'm not sure how many I did) I slipped on a root and had to put my foot down to stop me falling. There was a little twinge in my back. It was the only discomfort I had had at all up to this point, which is a major plus, so I kept going and ignored it.

15mins later I got to the stupidly steep second to last climb and walked it as I had done for most laps, to keep my heart rate down. My back felt a bit tight.

Rode back to the pit, and the feeding zone. I couldn't get my bottle out of the holder and so I said to Jo, "I'll keep going around to the solo lane, I may have a wee problem."

I was 4th and 12mins behind 2nd, who was the main concern for me. 1st was going too fast, I hoped.

Jo and Rich Holmes, a good friend from my local mtb community, were there. I stopped, and nearly face planted. My feet were stuck in the pedals.

Concerned looks.

"I'll ride to the caravan, but I think you may have to catch me, there."

I stop at the predetermined place, and Rich grabs the bike and helps me get a foot out. I try to stand up and immediately collapse against our car, in the shape of a bike rider. I was stuck.

Pain.
Hmm?

I'm sure I didn't swear, but my back and leg/glute hurt a lot. Where was my right foot, and had I wet myself?

They dragged me to the inside of the awning, bike shaped, and lay me on my side with my legs bent at 90 degrees.

Luckily, Jo is a physio. So she started trying to bend and knock 10 bells out of me and get it so that I could move my legs and back out of the shape I was in.

She gave up after 20mins, and decided to try and get me into the bed so that I could lie straight and flat.

It took her about 30mins to lift and assist me into the caravan. Rich had had to go to help his mate on his own solo ride.

At one point, I had jo's pink and girly hat on my head, and was being pushed along the floor of the caravan with my arms stuck under my body and face rubbing on the floor. The hat had been pushed down over my eyes, and I couldn't do anything about it.

My bum was still hanging out of the caravan door and was stuck up in the air as if it was a bike stand.

"Park HERE!"

Jo asked me to look at something as I was being moved.

"I can't see anything, Jo"

She saw my predicament...

...and fell about laughing.

After I got over the shock, and agony, of her dropping me I saw the funny side and sort of joined in. But it hurt to laugh, so I laughed some more.

Obviously I didn't get out again, but once on the bed I was able to carry on with some gentle mobilisations and she also got the dreaded tape out.

With my back taped up and supported on a proper bed, I returned to Earth from my low orbit.

That is not my foot, promise

All I could do was mull things over and keep relatively still.

In the morning I could just about stand, but I couldn't reach my knees. Jo got the flannel out and helped me clean myself.

"No, I can't reach below my waist sorry, Jo..."

I had a look around, got dizzy a few times, felt sick, and then came back to the van to do more mobilisation/stretches and extensions. Things were easing slightly.

At the end, I was lucky enough to watch Rob Dean ride in for his first ever 24 solo, as the winner!

He was the number 2, that I felt was a real threat. Number 1 did stop, but I'm not sure why.

Lots of positives, one piece of bad luck.

A humbling but fulfilling weekend.

And a free flannel wash.

And Rich's rider, Rik? He came 4th after a stunning upping of his game at solo 24!!!

Feeling naked and the Christmas Pudding Mk11

It's been an exciting couple of weeks. Jo raced, and my mate Julio is now an Age Group World 24hr Champion!

Jo was riding like a demon at Twentyfour12 and was leading 2nd place by 40mins or so by about 11pm. She looked awesome, and was getting quicker. But her head wasn't right: Mayhem was only 5 weeks ago, and she put herself through it at Eastnor...

...She pulled in and decided she'd had enough. I persuaded her to do another lap, but she just wasn't up for it. She came again in and went for a sleep.

She got up 5hrs later (or so, it's a bit fuzzy)and started again. The interesting thing is that she unlapped herself a couple of times, and was lapping 20min quicker than anyone else in her solo class. She came 4th!

So I've spent the last week coming to terms with this, and using it as a learning experience: Your head needs to be straight for a 24. Period.

SITS is just around the corner and it's time to focus.

Since 24/12, my training has been good though. All remnants of "The Bug" have gone and my legs are going well too. The bikes are sorted and it's time to pack!

There is just the small problem of a blown turbo and needing a car to get us and all of our kit up to SITS this weekend.

All of my kit is laid aside, so I had to train this weekend without my team colours on. It's the first time I've done it in ages, and I felt naked.

Cwmcarn was busy...What's he lookin' at?

Got home, washed the bikes and gave them a quick once over. Done.

Time to relax and spin for a week.

So the time comes, again, where I prepare my chamois for the onslaught to come.

3 pairs of shorts and skins longs are hung up in my dressing room with a couple of tubs of chamois cream stood alongside. Each day, I pop my head in there and smear the pads in cream. It sucks it up over the next 24hrs and you end up with a silky smooth and shearproof pad within about 4 or 5 days.

The Christmas Pudding Chamois, Mk11.

It's rumblin' time, and I think I'm excited.

Wish me luck.

Busy Boy

I have been quite busy of late...

...Never volunteer to do anything for anybody: My new motto.

The next few months is going to see the challenges of 24hr racing and also some from a Boss that realises I can do some grown up stuff other than just the clinical work I'm employed to do.

I wish he'd found out in the winter time.

This weekend was my chance to verify my endurance base after the, err, weight loss I suffered a few weeks ago. This has meant rescheduling to race at SITS instead of 24/12.

A 5 hour ride is generally a tough ride, even at endurance pace. My legs had been stiff all week after I had the daft idea of trying to ride 100miles in 4hrs 30min in the Welsh hills on the Sunday. I did it, but it nearly killed me. Happy days!

So I started with fairly dead legs after a week of easy spins and some intervals. My legs had been really painful due to the ride on Sunday and it took about an hour for them to wake up. After that I was spinning away happily.

At the end of the ride I had consistently taken 5 to 7 minutes off my lap times for the same ride last year, when I was bottle fed. This year I was carrying 6hrs of fluid and all of my gels, so I was heavier.

This was a good ride. I finished strong, and happy. I had ridden quite hard, at 24hr pace and lapped Cwmcarn in just over 55min. Not fast for the "Big Boys" but a real improvement for me.

My next big training ride will be 4 weeks before Relentless and I hope to do 9 Laps in just under 9hrs.

Bring it on. It's my home training ground and good practice for Relentless.

Nathaniel and Big Philth

On the last lap around Cwmcarn I met up with my little mate Nathaniel, and Big Phil; one of the guys that got me into Mountain Biking. The Young 'un was on my Elan, as he is visiting from Canada for a couple of weeks. He looked a bit tired; the bike is a proper downhill rig and not for the fainthearted to peddle uphill. But he wanted to try it, so who am I to turn him down?

He loved it on the downhills, mind you.

Sunday morning and he popped around to borrow a lighter bike. :)

For me, Sunday was a big day in terms of my resilience. I had to look after the birthday girl, and then try and find a window in the Biblically proportioned rain, to get my last ride of the week in.

It was absolutely torrential. Cwmcarn had a river running down the singletrack: all of it.

At 5pm, I had had enough waiting. So I went for it.

The rain got heavier. It was awful. But once you are wet and warm, it doesn't really matter. What does matter is the Cwmcarn Grit, but I won't divulge any more on that sensitive subject.

Normally on a ride the day after a long ride, I feel tired and have to think about reigning it in slightly. No such rubbish today. I warmed up and just got faster through the evening. After finishing at nearly 9pm, I got off and washed my bike before slinking into the utlity room to derobe and give the washing machine a bit of abuse. Poor thing.

My fitness is coming back. SITS should be a good ride.

Here's hoping.

I want my bike back, Nathaniel.

It's good to come home

It's been a bad couple of weeks.

Never mind.

Since Jo did her solo at Mayhem, I had had a bit of a dicky tummy. Nothing too bad, just a little bit grumbly.

So we went on holiday for a week, to be with our friends in West Wales, and "a little bit grumbly" turned into full blown nastiness. Nia had it too, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time together with our friends, at all.

It was also the hottest week of the year so far, with temperatures and humidity both very high. I was worried about dehydrating as I couldn't keep any fluid down (or up) for the whole week.

To compound the issue, I had committed to a couple of photoshoots during that week, with Seb Rogers. Nice guy.

Monday was at Cwmcarn and at the height of my dehydration. It was so humid that Seb was mopping his brow before every shot, so he didn't dribble on his camera. I had an egg for breakfast as that was all I could tolerate, and then we were out on the trail for about 5 hours. Luckily the water was staying down.

"How are your freeriding skills, Dave?"

"I dunno? Ok, I s'ppose?"

"Do want to ride down that?"

Long pause....

It was a sneaky way straight down into the tunnel on the corkscrew in the freeride section. I would never have seen it as a line.

"Hmm? That's quite steep and rocky. Yes, of course I'll do it."

Seb says, "You can drop your saddle a bit if you like?"

"Thanks!" sort of sarcastically. Now way was I going down there with my saddle up. No way Jose!

I think I looked nervous.

So I did it anyway, about 10 times, and ended up using the left side of the tunnel as a berm to fire me across to the normal exit berm, thereby missing the big hole in the bottom created by folks dragging their brakes.

It was quite good fun, but the forks were making a funny clunk and had lost all of their rebound damping by the end of it. Lucky it wasn't my bike.

The second Photoshoot was over Sebs' neck of the woods, and near the Clic24 course. But this was for a triathlon magazine and was a test of a few roadbikes. I liked them all, and would have had any one of them.

That was another 5 hours out in the sun, on an egg and 2 bananas.

I did one other ride around Brechfa in the fortnight, but had to stop because I came over all funny. Such is life.

Yesterday I rode my bike properly, at solo pace and slightly above. I felt a bit out of sorts, but not too bad. Where I had been doing 20+mph average on a 3 hr ride, I managed 16 or 17 for a 2 hr ride.

It'll come back, but not in time for 24/12.

So Jo said (with quite a bit of glee) "I'll do it!"

So I've lost my place to her, but it's for the best. I'll do SITS. For 24/12 I need to be right on my game; more so than ever before, and that just isn't going to happen. It's questionable whether or not I could actually finish a 24 solo in 3 weeks, so I'm not taking the chance.

Jo can enjoy it, and I'll give SITS my best go, now. It's not how we planned it, but it'll have to do. My weight can come back back up as I recover, and I'll hit the August race as hard as I can. Here's hoping!

Whilst I was feeling dejected, I decided to do something about the problems I have had with my training computer. I haven't gotten on with it at all, because it doesn't have a big red button to aim for. This causes me problems when I'm tired and press the wrong buttons as I always seem to default to looking for the big red button. That's probably because prior to my present monitor (of 1 year) I had been on Polar since 1992.

So I contacted PolarUK and asked them for some help.

2 days later one of these babies turned up!



A couple of training and play sessions with it, and I'm hooked.

I need to update my sponsor page on the website now. Maybe tonight.

It's good to come home to Polar.

How do you beat that!?

Mountain Mayhem 2009.

Jo, my long suffering other half and our mate, Matt were on the solo race list. There were also lots of other good names there, just to make sure that the racing was exciting.

It didn't fail to impress...

...and I'm knackered, still. I didn't even ride my bike.

Matt won, after a proper nail biting final 6hrs, but it had been A tense race all of the way through since the lead kept swapping back and forward as he made sure he knew what strategy to use in the end. It worked, enough said. He was awesome, and inspiring.

Jo?


Well, she was awesome too. Stalwart pig headedness saw her let some of the "fast" folk shoot off, fall back and drop out.

She also managed to show me up with respect to the amount of food that she can put away during a race. She still surprised me with her ability to eat hotdogs at 16 and 20 hours into the ride. I wish I could do that.

Jo was 2nd, and now has a lovely pair of Crank Bros Cobalt wheels to show for her toils.

I like 'em. I wonder if she'd notice if I swapped them over.

Rob turned up after work with Matt from Certini and brought the new Team Lights. Maxx2Daddy and Joystick Maxx2. 6 sets!

Jo used them all, we just kept changing them every lap as she filled her face. Full power; singeing the trees. Marvellous. She didn't even notice us changing the lights over! Miss Focussed, or what?

The Exposure lights that Rory has sorted out for us are well blinged up. Chrome ends, with our names in place of the light designation. Mine are the Maxx2 DAVE.

I like those too!

After the race, I went up to "Rory" in his South Downs Racing shirt, and said thanks for the lights, and that they were superb. He looked at me funny. I said, "I'm Dave off of the Ironhorse-Extreme Team." His look remained unchanged, and I heard him say, "I've never seen him before in my life."

I kept digging, "You even sent me a text to congratulate me on my C2C."

It wasn't him. It sort of looked like him, but was blatantly not. I felt like a right weapon. The South Downs Shirt denoted the guy as coming from around the same area, so that just confused me at 30hrs into the day without sleep.

Oops.

I tried to find the real Rory, instead of this imposter and usurper of my devoted thanks, but he had disappeared.

Training hasn't been great this week as I have a little bug. But before it hit me I managed a 3 1/4hr ride on the roadie, with stupid one sided road pedals, and managed an average of 20.5mph.

So this will be a light week, and weekend, just to make sure I am illness free.

Dave