Mountain Mayhem

It was Mountain Mayhem last weekend - 24hr mountain bike racing(?) at it's best and worst. i was honoured to be riding with Singlespeeders of Destruction, thanks to Chipps, Biff and Nick for being a gorgeous team to get properly broken with. Felt absolutely empty after the first lap, so just tried to survive after that. It got easier on the next lap, then I did a double night lap and went to bed feeling sick. woke up after 3.5 hours sleep and thought "my knees hurt, I don't want to do another lap". Had a quadruple espresso and thought another lap or two might not be so bad and ventured forth. The horror. It was like a re-enactment of the Somme with bikes instead of bullets. I might have thrown my bike down when i got back and cursed about dragging a 50lb mud laden singlespeed around that course.

It was ace!

SSUK 2007

It was in Brizzol. It was ace. You had to be there.

DNF!

After my sterling (ahem!) performance in the 1000m peaks I was humbled last night in the Moel Elio race - completely blew up after about 10 minutes, tried to carry on but didn't have anything in the tank and could feel my throat getting sore and a dry cough started up. Took a short cut and still came in last but one. Hey ho!

welsh 1000m peaks

Well, 10 days after the event Ive just gotten around to brag about completing the 1000m Peaks race - 22 miles, something like 2700m of ascent, starting on the coast at abergwyngregan and finishing on the summit of Snowdon. A cruel place to finish a race of that nature because when you've 'finished' there's still another 4 miles to get back to the car. Finished in 6 hours dead - and i was dead by the end, could barely speak when I reached the top of the miner's track let alone run.

Probably the hardest thing I've ever done. No, DEFINITELY the hardest thing I've ever done. But having done it, well, it begs the question "what next?" maybe I should concentrate on doing shorter races a bit quicker....

Foel Fras fell race

13.5 miles with 1000m of ascent, finished in 2h 02 mins. It was really a training run for the 1000m Peaks race, in terms of distance atleast, so I was pretty happy to finish feeling reasonably strong after having passed a few guys over the last couple of miles. Still finished behind the fastest over 60 though :)

evening run

Met up with a bunch of fell runners, expecting to go for a 90 minute run. Ended up being out for 2 1/2 hours - a bit longer than expected! Still it was a steadt pace and I didn't die or anything, so it must have been good training...

New van

So I got a Berlingo - Woo! Seems like the ideal thing for trips with bikes, plus no more getting laughed at for turning up at the builder's merchants in a Fiat Punto. Oh, no - in my new Berlingo i shall command total respect from them, and when I go to B&Q I'll be getting jealous looks from people thinking "Grr - he's got a Berlingo van and I've just got a Ford Mondullo". But it will not faze me.

I'll put some pics up when (if) I can be bothered.