In the week running up to the event, the weather in Cambridge decided it was going to turn decidedly autumnal - gone were the sun drenched, breeze tousled summer evenings to be replaced by harsh winds, cold rains, and less daylight. It almost sounds ridiculous to admit it, given that officially at least there are another couple of weeks left before we even get to the beginning of autumn, but the start of the football and cyclocross seasons do sound the knell of summer to me, and try as i might, i can't help but start counting down the days and weeks until halloween when the winds start sweeping in across the fens from Siberia (at least so the urban legend goes...). Whilst i was being blown around in the flatlands, biblical amounts of raining were falling on the borders, soaking the Kielder peat even more and swelling the local rivers and burns almost to the point of bursting.
I took the friday off work, not fancying starting the 300mile journey north on a friday evening on the A14, and Rachel and I made a day of getting up there. We stopped off in Oakham, the county town of Rutland (according to Steven Fry the second smallest county in Britain, after the Isle of Wight at high tide) to grab some cash and some food, and to have somewhere nice to eat our packed lunches. We then carried on North, making it to the border town of Kielder, set in 250 square miles of man-made forest shortly after 6pm. Rachel headed over the the castle to help out Sara and the sip-events team, and i tootled out over the first few miles of the course to see if there were any bottlenecks to worry about, and to spin my legs out. We reconvened for the age-old favourite of noodly-stir fry at about half-seven, and then went back over for Rachel to get to the marshall's briefing. Unfortunately, and this won't suprise any of you that know us, we got to the castle too late, so helped out with sign-on instead.
I made friends with a beautiful weinmaraner (sp?) dog, who was intent on licking my face, but wonderfully well-behaved and belonged to the chap doing the kit checking. In spite of her best efforts, Rachel didn't manage to get a photo of me making a fool of myself over my new canine best friend! 9:00pm came around amazingly quickly with all these distractions, and it was time to head down to the courtyard to be told of what was in store. I have to admit, when the reality of what i was planning to do hit me as Sara ran through the details, my stomach did tighten - i can't have done 100 miles on a road bike more than half a dozen times in my life, and every time it's been an experience. The closest thing in terms of effort and concentration i'd done previously was the Ardechois cyclosportif in the summer of 2006. That experience had left me so tired that i managed to stagger to the event village, buy a 1kg jar of ratatouille and a 2litre bottle of coke, eat entire jar of veg with the only utensil at hand; a piece of cardboard i found (it's amazing unhygenic you are when you're that hungry!), drink the coke and then fall sound asleep under my bike! I woke up three hours later with one of my mates tapping me on the shoulder with his foot...
Hydrate or die...
Post briefing, i headed to bed, mindful of the 5:00am start i would need to be ready in time for the roll-out, and with every intention of getting a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, my pre-race nerves had other plans, and i tossed and turned restlessly in the sleeping bag until long-gone midnight before finally getting some shut-eye. If anything, the arrival of the alarm was a relief - i could get up, and occupy myself with getting ready. It was pretty chilly so early on a september morning, and i kitted up and then put all my clothes on over the top. I forced down a couple of bowls of crunchy nut, a coffee, and then headed over to the line, pain-au-chocolate in hand. The sun was poking his head over the trees, and starting to warm the air, unfortunately bringing out clouds of midges that were out for blood on the start line (as if they hadn't feasted enough on the assembled throng whilst we were being briefed the night before!). We headed out on a neutralised start at 6:35, riding behind the lead car at a fairly sedate pace intended to keep the bunch together until we hit the first climb.
As soon as we did, all hell broke loose and the guys at the front started tearing strips off each other. My legs were already feeling a bit heavy, and didn't thank me for trying to get them going faster, and i floated back through the group from about 10th position to 60th or 70th as the climb went on. Bugger, losing contact so early on, not a good sign i thought. I decided it was too cold and too early to start worrying, i'd just ride a steady pace and see what happened as the race progressed. The first descent was a bit sketchy, covered in muddy water from the previous week's rainfall, and by the bottom i couldn't see a damn thing through my oakleys - so it was going to be like that was it?! As we carried on, i caught up with the guy who designed the graphics for the numbers, Dean who was riding for VC Moulin, and as if the event wasn't hard enough had decided to singlespeed it too. We rode to the first feed, where i grabbed a bunch of gels and a refill, and started to feel a bit better, and picked up the pace a bit. Further on, i came across Rachel marshalling a "three arrow" descent which transpired to be nothing more than a steep rock slab you could roll down or drop off, although apparently lots of people freaked out at the idea that it deserved three arrows, got off and ran! She shouted to me that i was about 20mins down on the leaders - 20m in three hours, not so bad i thought.
I pressed on, passing group after group of people who seemed intent on riding really gently along the flat fire roads, and then hammering up the climbs; not the most efficient way to ride such a long event. Just by riding steadily, and descending reasonably confidently i seemed to be making up quite a bit of ground. The slog up to the piper at the bloody bush bridge was worth it just to see the quintessentially Scottish sight of a man in a kilt standing in the rain piping. Good work, sir! By the time we got to Newcastleton at the 65mile point, i was starting to suffer though - the riding kept me going, being fun swoopy descents, and then i got another boost from seeing Paul of sip fame who told me i was nudging the top-15. He very kindly put some oil on my poorly, creaking chain, as I dashed inside, grabbed a couple of handfully of jaffa cakes and some more energy drink, and then headed out to try and catch a few more people. The remaining riding is a bit of a blur, i remember really enjoying my bottle of flat coke from feed 4, and riding down the slightly wet & slippy boardwalk with the abandon of someone who no longer cares for their safety, and the enthusiastic marshalls who told me there were only 6 miles left to ride. Oh joy, i was nearly back. Sadly, most of those 6 miles consisted of horrible, half-finished tracks that felt like riding over the foundations of a wall - apparently they were no less rattly and horrible on a full suss, and they even caused my saddlebag to come unhitched. But it didn't matter, i was so nearly home. I exchanged pleasantries with Mike Powell over the last couple of km, and we came in almost together, me for 9th senior, and him for 2nd vet in a bit over 9hrs.
It was a big day. I didn't feel too bad straight after, and wandered around for a bit chatting to the guys at the finish, and then catching up with more peeps at the castle. I had some food with Si Ernest and Neal Crampton who'd come first and second, and then staggered back to give Rach a sandwich (she'd been finish-timing quite a while by this point!) with the soreness really starting to set in to my legs. The rest of the evening's a bit of a blur, probably aiding in part by Ian Leitch, purveyor of fine pale ales, but the experience did nothing to dampen my post-big-dog enthusiasm for the idea that all races should end with a party!
So, in short, a superb event, and definitely a proper man's race (none of this lapped nonsense!) - one that will definitely be on my list to do again, in spite of mud, rain, wind, cold, wheel-swallowing puddles, and nasty unnecessary boulders. Maybe i need my head examined...
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