Hell of The Ashdown - Devil's DeTour

I've had... issues with cycling and hills.  So I decided to get over it and sign up for the silly annual hillfest that Mr TOTKat has done a couple of times before.  Slightly annoyingly, there is a longer and a shorter route.  And being completely lacking in perspective around hills, I decided to do the shorter route just to be safe.

The shorter of the two routes of the Catford Cycling Club annual large-sale sportive is the "Devil's deTour".  I thought I might manage 03:15:00 and did some maths on the 2011 results to see what the mean time for women over that course was and at 03:34:00 I thought top 1/3rd was a reasonable target to aim for.

R/L/SO	'Devil's deTour' Challenge '50K' (53.5K) Route	Route	Kilo	Mile
START	Biggin Hill, Kent - H.Q. Charles Darwin School, Jail Lane		00.0	00.0
L	Leaving HQ - Jail Lane - Bear R - Down Berrys Hill - Climb Church Hill
R	'Cudham Test Hill' (Church Hill) - At Top Dismount - CARE turning R	(M)	2.1	1.3
	Cudham - Cudham Lane - The Nower
R	Onto Hogtrough - DANGER steep descent - CARE hidden side roads		5.6	3.5
L	Brasted - CARE turning L into High St.	(M)	8.3	5.3
1st R	Chart Lane - Brasted Chart - Toys Hill(long/steady ascent)		11.7	7.3
	Toys Hill - DANGER steep descent		12.4	7.7
R	Into Green Lane - CARE at junction	B2042 (M)	14.8	9.2
L	Four Elms X roads L Into Clinton Lane	B2027	15.6	9.7
2nd R	Into How Green Lane	B2027	16.9	10.5
	In How Green Lane bear left at bend and follow road
L	L at Fork (110k route goes R)	(M)	18.7	11.6
L	L at T junction into Hever Rd	(M)	18.7	11.6
R	Bough Beech At T junction CARE turning R onto B2027	B2027(M)	20.3	12.6
1st L	Towards Blore Place - S/O at next junction (NOT to Ide Hill)		22.3	13.9
L	At junction keep bearing L into Bowzell Road		26.8	16.7
R	Bayley's Hill (long/steep ascent) At top of hill turn R into White House Lane		29.4	18.3
1st L	Into ? Gracious Lane		30.0	18.6
L	At B2042 onto Wheatsheaf Hill		32.3	21.1
1st R	At Car Park/ Toilets CHECK / Feed then L towards Ide Hill Village	CHECK	32.7	20.3
R	Ide Hill Village - R at Green/Roundabout		33.1	20.6
R	Fork R towards Sundridge - Church Rd		43.2	21.3
SO	Sundridge Straight over Traffic Lights into Chevening Road	B2211	36.8	22.9
Exit 1	At Roundabout turn L into Star Hill Road		40.6	25.2
	Climb Star Hill (long/steep ascent)		41.9	26.0
1st L	At 'The Harrow'		43.2	26.8
1st L	Knockholt Pound L at the village green into Main Road		43.5	27.0
L	At Scotts Lodge t junction L into Cudham Lane		46.6	29.0
1st R	Into Grays Road		46.8	29.1
R	At Hawley's Corner ('Spinning Wheel') extreme R into Buckhurst Rd		49.6	30.8
1st L	Into Berry's Green Road (care Potholes!)		50.8	31.6
1st L	At T junction then bear left at top of hill into Jail Lane		52.2	32.4
FINISH	HQ - Charles Darwin School on R in Jail Lane	Distance	53.5	33.2

Mr TOTKat was down for an 09:02 start for the 100K route, me 10:22 for the 50K route, so I had over an hour to kill after he and Mupps headed off for some hill-related fun.  Luckily, my overshoe decided to have a zip failure, so I spent a good 20 minutes looking for ways to stop it from flapping about and unravelling.  It was cold enough that not wearing them would have been probably a bad idea.  A cable tie was the first option, but I didn't like the fact that I couldn't get it off in a hurry, so I ended up with two elastic bands knotted together and threaded through the loop on the back of my cycling shoe to help it stay in place.

I ran into a Thames Turbo member and had a bit of a chat before a group of us headed off for the 10:22 start time slot.  Thankfully for me, I was pre-warned about the first hill being utterly ridiculous; "Major Climbs Cudham Test Hill – New in 2009, this literally gives a short sharp shock in the first mile or so. Don’t worry if you have to walk the 1 in 4 stretch at the top because in any case we ask you to dismount to turn right at the T junction."  That and the words of warning from Mr TOTKat prepared me for the silliness that was the first hill.  4 of the others in the same starting group, however, had no idea what was in store for them, so when they rounded the bend and started up the incline, three of them wobbled into the middle of the road, one of those fell sideways and got off, the other two zig-zagged in front of me a bit until I passed them in the first couple of metres and the last one disappeared behind me in a fit of giggles.

I powered up really very slowly, but knowing that was the worst of the steepness over, got to the junction at the top in one piece and only had to unclip at the top briefly before turning right and getting on with the ride.  Very pleased with the steepest bit over with in the first few minutes, I wasn't sure if that hill counted as one of the four main ones on the shorter route nor how the others would compare.

Annoyingly, MapMyRide doesn't consider the whole of Star Hill due to a plateau before the summit...

Long story short, I didn't hold back like I have been on my long rides.  I chased down two guys who were ahead of me and descended better than me, but I caught them on every ascent; the big hills and the rolling rises too.  I gritted my teeth through the big ascents and hung in there, was a bit cautious on the descents due mostly to worrying about oncoming traffic and the narrowness of some of the roads.  Next time I'll know better.  Also, I stopped a bit long at the feed station and ended up chatting to a guy who is to my right in this photo and making me grin like an idiot... (note the elastic band around my left ankle ;o))

I didn't intend to spend long at the feed station, but ended up there for over 5 and a half minutes mostly due to chatting.  If I'd just crammed in the two gels and swigs of water I'd've been out in a minute or two, tops.  And at the end, I really wish I had!

I don't remember this hill/photo point... but it looks pretty steep to me.  Note the guys behind me, out of the saddle.  I still can't do that on hills; fine on the flat though.  More bike skills practice please!

And here I am, giving out to the photographers part-way up Star Hill...  I was pretty chuffed at this point having spent a good few km chasing down a slightly large bloke all in Castelli gear with red pants underneath that were grinning through the black of his tights.  He'd passed me at a point after I'd messed up my gearing and was slower than I should have been, with a cheery "well done!".  I wasn't having any of that, sorted my gears out and proceeded to have him up the next hill.  Then he beat me down the next one.  So I beat him up the next.  Repeat for 3 hills and then I lost him, or he lost me I can't remember which now.

4km from the end, I was pumping down a gentle descent, really picking up speed, passed the first of a pair of cyclists, slowed a bit for a bend and then hit something big in the road.  I didn't see what it was but I yelled out "shiiii-i-i--i-i-iiit!", almost lost the back end of the bike, veered across the road and fought the bike back vertical underneath me.  Poor bugger behind was worried he was going to hit me, the guy in front yelled out to check I was OK.  I quickly made it known I was fine and carried on sawing at the pedals to get my speed back as I was almost at the finish and really wanted to get a decent time.

Round the final few bends, up the tiny little hill to the finish and I stormed over the finish line to the squealing of the timing mat.  Starving hungry at this point, I forgot about the planned recovery meal in the car and headed straight for the cafe for a sausage and bacon baguette and two teas, via picking up my finisher's certificate hot off the press.  02:26:14 - little did I know at that point it was only 00:01:47 behind the first woman!

Once I'd stuffed a ton of food in and cooled down a bit, I nipped back to the car to pick up Mr TOTKat's trainers as he was due to do a 15 minute run at the end of the ride.  There were loads of sociable people chatting away so I ended up talking to two guys who were quite half-decent cyclists with lots of stories. Mr TOTKat and Mupps turned up and Mr TOTKat changed into trainers for a quick trot around the block before coming back to a sausage and bacon baguette.  I scoffed another two teas and a hunk of carrot cake before we packed up to go home.

As we drove home, I thought more and more about last year's results for this event and the fact that the first woman over the line for the short route did it in 02:20:xx.  I thought I was in with a shot of placing top three... and had to wait for hours for the results to go up.  Hitting refresh over and over until I got bored, and was eating dinner when an SMS came in from Mupps that I might want to hit refresh again.

4th place overall for the shorter route and 2nd woman by 1 minute and 47 seconds.  If only I'd yapped less at the feed station!

Well, that went well.

Full race report to follow...

I think coach gets it now

I'd been a bit worried about coachJez potentially not understanding what this year was about for me. It was clear that he knew I was doing IM Wales, but I was pretty sure he'd not taken in the rest of the schedule with any real understanding.  So when he sent me the next 21 sessions of training programme, I replied with an email with the dates of my races so he could schedule for recovery around those.

The next time I saw him, Thursday this week for a cross-train session, the first thing he said to me was "You... are nuts!".  And then we had a long talk about my race schedule.  He gets it now.  Really gets it.  CoachJez has trained people for Ironman before, and people who have a couple of long races in a season, usually one near the beginning and then Kona at the end, but not someone who is doing four of the things in 3 months.  So, he's started to get some advice elsewhere on how we manage this so I get through the season safely.  I'm a little bit worried that he's going to go the other way too far with the training, i.e. wind the hard sessions right back in favour of endurance/base fitness stuff and be overly cautious with recovery - he's already said "no training for 2 days after a Sprint, 4 days after an Olympic..." which, OK I know you put a huge strain on your body with a proper Sprint but... not even gentle spinning or jogging for 2 whole days or 4 after the Olympic?  The other thing is that he's gone really heavy on the rolling regime.  I've had to get some mad, knobbly rollers to use after -every- training session and/or -every- day for 15-30 minutes.  Plus, quite sensibly, Jez wants me to categorise my races as A, B and C so he can work the Cs in as training sessions, the As in as you'd expect and I'm not sure what he's going to do with the Bs.

I'll try to sit back and wait to see what the new programme looks like - coachJez said to throw away the one he just gave me - and trust that he knows what he's doing even though this is new territory for him.  It takes me right out of my comfort zone, though I'm really good at putting all of my trust in professionals, I don't have 100% faith in coachJez(yet).  Probably because I've not seen any results yet, even though I've been training with him for 6.5 months... there haven't been any events to benchmark it.
 

Ultimate Ironman Challenge

As if Ironman Wales by itself (with Wimbleball as a warm-up) wasn't enough of a challenge for our first year going long...

Originally we were going to do Ironman Wales, with UK 70.3 (Wimbleball) along the way as a pre-amble.  We were planning and training for that and everything was exciting and a bit scary, but not all that scary.  Even now I can visualise a 70.3 distance, maybe not with monster hills, but the distance itself doesn't hold any real fear already.

 Then Mr TOTKat came across this...

"Dan James, Operations Director for IRONMAN UK, explains: “After launching the Ironman Ireland and Ironman Wales events last year some people started to talk about the ultimate test of completing our four races in one season. We thought this was incredibly hard but knew we had to recognise the achievement if someone could succeed in finishing all four in the same year.”

This is no easy feat as it will require an exceptional effort to complete over 420 miles of racing inside three months. A number of athletes, like Charlie, have already put their names forward for the challenge and Ironman have responded to the idea enthusiastically. The UK organising team have agreed to provide some extra reward for athletes who are attempting the extremely difficult task." 

My first reaction was "you're crazy!".  We've not even done a 70.3 yet, have no idea about recovery times or even how we'll cope with a 70.3, never mind a full distance.  Plus, the last two are two weeks apart!  So, I suggested that coachJoe be consulted to see just how crazy it was. The response came back pretty much as "do it!" (with a bit more about the practical and sensible bits).  So I thought about it and...

Here we are.  Signed up for 4x Ironman events this year:-

"As a result athletes embarking upon the ‘ultimate’ will receive special race numbers and a commemorative package including t-shirt, jacket and a unique medal as part of a special awards ceremony. A ‘Wall of Fame’ will also be created online to honour the success of those who can overcome the odds to finish all four races in the same season. "

So far, there are 9 people signed up for the challenge, and we're two of them.  Now I'm appropriately excited.  I think this has now got to its logical conclusion. There is no more we could realistically do in 2012.  It's not going to be easy, but then it never was doing "just" the two.

Good week, great ride!

Sunday's long ride (with short run afterwards) was a bit on the scary side, thinking about it beforehand, what with all the snow that's going on and the ice warnings...

Still, I set off a bit later than planned but with a belly full of porridge and tea, with Percy Pigs, a cereal bar, my phone, an extra thermal top and a flask of hot tea in my rucksack,  a bottle of water on my bike, and a decent length route plumbed into the Garmin.

The route was a good idea. A really nice change from the usual tedious routes and a few hills in it for good measure.  In theory, looking at the profile and the description, there were 3 hills on the route.  One and two were un-named but number 3 was Box Hill.  Demonised and scare-mongered that hill is, but I decided to stop being a wuss and go for it anyway.

Having trundled in to Kingston and taken a left where we normally turn right to go to the Thames Turbo races, I ended up on a long, straight, quiet road by the side of the river for quite some time.  This is where I hit the only patch of black ice I've ever come across and in the first split second, I had no idea what was going on, almost lost the back end of the bike, felt a weird gyroscopic effect and the struggle of my feet trying to fly away from the pedals but being clasped firmly in place by my cleats.  Not fun. but I didn't go over and it was finished in less than a couple of seconds.

The route carried on into villages, past a church where, at the one hour mark, I stopped for a minute to cram in the first five Percy Pigs.  They are great.  Seriously.  Then came the first hill.  It was a bit hard, but nothing terrible, nothing more than Wimbledon Hill which isn't so bad really.  Then came the second hill, which was a bit harder than the first.  Really quite a bit and I was slogging very slowly in the lowest gear, getting a bit worried about falling off due to moving so slowly and the piled up snow at the sides of the road forcing me more into the middle of the road with there being a couple of blind dips for oncoming vehicles.  It got so steep at one point that I was properly worried that I might go over into the road with no way for a car to see me, so I got off and walked up a little bit, before getting back on at a shallower section and finishing the climb.  Having passed through a few places where there were National Trust car parks and other sites, I decided to stop at the next one as that'd be 2 hours in to the ride and I wanted to have some tea and a cereal bar and hopefully a wee stop.  I got the tea and the cereal bar, plus some more Percy Pigs, but I'm afraid I had to make some yellow snow as there were no loos.  Two hills down, one to go.

Having got up the first two hills, I was genuinely worried about what Box Hill had in store for me especially having had to walk up a section of one of them.  If these hills were not named or publicly feared, how was I going to get up the one people talk about?  The tens of metres passed on and on with no sign of another hill...

Then I came to the first road that was coned off and  marked as "CLOSED", I trundled through, thinking "naaah, they don't really mean that, it looks fine to me.  It was a gentle downhill to a hair-pin bend at which point I was faced with this:-

And a lady out for a walk in the snow with her walking stick.  We chatted for a bit about the state of the road.  I think she thought I was crazy.  We headed off on our separate ways and then the road got worse and became this:-

The difference is subtle, but enough that the bike was going sideways and over bumps and even after I'd got off to walk, I fell over while wheeling my bike along.

Thankfully it cleared quite quickly and I was back on the wheels again and off for a lot more km before I came to the dreaded, revered, much-famed Box Hill.  I took the turning to the bottom of Box Hill, found the right hand turn that starts the climb to find, yet again, "ROAD CLOSED" and, just for fun on a hill, speed bumps.

Box Hill.  What a let down!  I was expecting some monster of a steep hill that would put the burn into my thighs and lungs, but nothing of the sort.  It's a set of fairly pedestrian switchbacks at a civilised gradient and even with speed bumps added in, it's just a very long, very shallow climb.  Unfortunately for me on Sunday, the reason for the road closure became apparent as I neared the top it got icy like that last photo again.  This time I didn't get off and walk up the last little bit, I just cycled purposefully onwards.  Easy on the handlebars, not fighting the bike and not putting a whole lot of power into the pedals.  And I almost got to the top, before I skittered sideways over a particularly lumpy, rutted patch of ice and lost the back end, ending up lying on my side, pedals still clipped in due to the low speed with my bike flapping between my legs. Ohboy did I feel silly in that position.  As I was just getting back on again I was passed by someone on a (far more appropriate for the condition of that road) mountain bike who said "that was fun wasn't it?" to which, the only appropriate response was "not really, no".  I now have a mahousive bruise on my right hip.

At the top of Box Hill, there's a National Trust cafe thing with benches outside where I decided to have more tea and Percy Pigs.  My poor bike was a teensy bit snow-bound from the trip up the hill...

...but the tea was still hot and the last 5 Percy Pigs a bit sweaty and sticky from being in my back pocket so long.

With a bit of help from a friendly mountain biker from Wimbledon, the packed-in ice in my cleats was dug out with a stick so I could get back on my bike for the last stretch home.  To be honest I was a bit naughty and turned up the gas a bit much for the final stretch.  This was supposed to be an easy ride, and it was apart from the scary bit up the earlier hill where I had to get off and walk, but the call of the home stretch often proves a bit much for me to resist.

Last week was a good un' and the ride at the end was just great.  I loved it, despite falling over a couple of times. Again! Again!