...and she showed me her knickers!

Life has been a busy of late, and I just realised that I've missed a week or so of blogs.

You could probably do with a break, anyway.

This weekend was a good one, having done the 100km open at "The Big Welsh Weekend" at Margam Park. I missed the entry to the Championships, but that would have been a lost cause, anyway.

Also, I have finally fully realised that the grumbling knee problem I have had since my coast to coast is "nearly" gone. I feel it but it doesn't trouble me, but I am super sensitive to seat height variations at the moment. My tape measure is coming out, and I'm going to write this down, keep it and use it.

The weather was Scorchio! I'm pale blue and Scottish. Heat doesn't agree with me. It's, surprisingly, the first 100km marathon event I've ever done and I have to admit to being a bit nervous both about the event and the heat.

As it turned out, it was good practice for next weeks 12hr solo at Bristol, because I only really felt comfortable at 5-10% above my 24hr pace. Any more than that and my eyeballs started melting and I lost control of my heart rate; which was high all day anyway, for some reason. The heat?



My aim was 6hrs at a steady pace for the 100Km, so I was happy to come in at 5hrs 19min. My pacing is good at the moment...

...for me.

At the top of Margam we entered a rutted downhill and a guy had a proper, dramatic, off infront of me. His bike had buried itself somewhere quite personal and he was sqealing like a stuck pig. I got off and helped him out, but nobody else bothered their backside. I was surprised by this, since he was making a lot of noise and lying straight across the track. People had to work hard to get past us.

Thanks Guys. I asked a couple of folk for help to get him off the track, but they were obviously going for World dominance (in the mid-pack).

Anyway, I sorted him out by extricating the bike from him, and realised that he was just winded. At that, he started to move himself around and stand up. After a while and making sure he wasn't going to flake out I got going again.

It was pretty uneventful up to the mid point of the race then. A guy got out of the way for me on a little steep offroad section at the top of the last climb. He was perched kind of precariously above a steep slope but had left plenty of room for me to get past...

...His right pedal turned out to be in my way, as I cycled past and my foot caught his on it's upstroke. The contact between our feet was quite momentous, as it launched him and his bike down the slope.

Oops.

He was fine and shouted at me to keep going. I think he laughed, but I felt really guilty.

Another thing that will stick in my mind, apart from the 10 or so riders I watched toss their used gel wrappers aside on the trail and the subsequent detritous, is feeling moisture speckle my face on a downhill firetrack. It was quites pleasant, until I looked up to see what was happening. A guy that I was catching up because he wasn't peddling had his old boy out and was peeing over the top of his shorts, on the move. Spray was going everywhere, and I had to change position on the track to make sure I stayed dry.

Personally, I'd stop if I wasn't in the top flight of riders there; which we weren't.

I bet he smelled nice afterwards.

Then a member of the RAF was running down the hill with his bike in one hand and a front wheel in the other. He'd lost his pump and had a pinch flat. I reckoned he would catch me up again, as he had been in front anyway, so I stopped and gave him my posh little pump. He had other problems though and had to quit, so he waited for me at the feeding transition in the arena and gave it back to me as I rode through for my final lap. Good lad.

I started to feel right in the groove on the last lap: I had "warmed up" now, and was entering "the long ride zone".

Was I fast? Nope. Could I have gone any faster? Probably not in that heat, maybe slightly faster if it was cool. Was I happy with my performance? Yip.

My feeding and fluid strategy is working well although it seems like I still have one speed at which I can do reasonably well--24hr pace. This 2-6hr xc stuff is too quick for me and I'll always be an "also-ran" but it's fun! However, my long distance endurance pace is getting higher. I have to keep reminding myself that I came into this game late, and didn't follow the more normal route of xc racing followed by enduros and then 24's. That's why I have only one speed.

Sat with our friends later in their van and eating all of their food, Kate seemed really pleased that she had Snoopy knickers on. She was so pleased that she showed them to us!

Nutter.