8.5km or so really doesn’t sound so bad. Until I did a bit of pre-ride recon and found out that during that 8.5km we’d be ascending three hills. At race pace.
Based on previous races over similarly hilly terrain, I wasn’t anticipating greatness for today’s ride. Instead I was hoping to do well against previous 10 to 15 minute personal best times.
One unusual aspect of today’s race was that I needed to do this one early. Usually I would aim to race (or ride generally) on my dinner break. Around noon. But today, being another school teacher strike at my kid’s school, I had planned to take them out for their dinner.
Now, that did mean that I could double up: get in the exercise, build up a calorific deficit, and then fill in said deficit with high calorie American style BBQ. Or as American style BBQ as can be found on a cold, gray day in the North West of England.
I wasn’t sure how well attended the race would be, doing the earlier slot. Had there been one available, I would definitely have opted for an 11am start. That would still have given me plenty of time to warm up, do the race, get showered, changed, and off out. But alas, only 10:10 or 12:10 were available. I guess 08:10 also, but crikey melt, I told you my kids are off school. And I’m off work, so it’s basically a Sunday. Lie in!
In terms of race numbers, we had ~90 at the off. Definitely down on the 100+ I’d expect on the noon slot.
Based on my usual performances, I was expecting to be somewhere around the ~45 position. But immediately from the off, I figured that might be wishful thinking.
OR perhaps a chunk of the 60+ who got up the road had over estimated their abilities to sustain three back to back efforts.
We would find out.
The route today – City and The Sgurr – involves heading up Sgurr Summit from both North and South directions.
But I did say this has three climbs, so that meant doing Sgurr Summit North twice.
What happens on this one is there’s a fairly long lead-in. But this is deceiving.
From the pens there is a descent / flat of about 1km, and then it’s on to the Sgurr Summit North for the first climb – and this is still technically the lead-in. So you do the first climb, in full, as part of the lead-in, and then the race proper / the lap starts from the KOM arch at the top.
One interesting aspect of this route is that Sgurr Summit North is longer and is gravel. So you may want to swap your bike accordingly pre-race.
Then Sgurr Summit South is tarmac, but shorter.
Inevitably as we hit the bottom of the first climb, I could see the big bunch up ahead start to split into a longer snake. From there it became a case of pacing the effort properly. At around 4 minutes in total length for me, but knowing I had to do this twice, I went for 260w / 4.3w/kg.
On the watts per kilo front, I realised after the race that I forgot to swap to 67kg. So I raced this one a little lighter than I currently am. I have now corrected this. This was a genuine mistake, and being pre-occupied with the morning’s other tasks plus the unusual start time, I’m not surprised.
Another interesting aspect of this route is that between each climb, you descend down and then hit a little roundabout, and then it’s back up. So you do quite quickly get to see how far ahead / behind you are (behind in my case) as the front runners were already on their second ascent as I was on my first descent.
This actually didn’t bother me.
Like I say many times before, I never expect to win. And on races like this, I don’t even expect to come close.
For me it’s about racing myself really, more than anything. Trying to do better than last time. Trying to beat my previous times on the KOM boards. That sort of thing. And of course, trying to beat those around me.
I think I did alright – effort / pace-wise – on the first climb.
I think I could have done better on the second climb. I definitely dropped my pace on that one, trying to recover and stay slightly below FTP. I was still trying, but I knew I needed to pace it for the third and final effort.
Of all the three climbs today I feel the third went best.
I hit the bottom in 59th and came over the top in 53rd.
There was a steady ramp up in that final effort which felt good and possibly played to my strengths.
Overall then, pleased with this one.
A short ride though, overall. After crossing the line I was absolutely knackered, and by the time I calmed down I noticed how much my blistered right heel was rubbing. I think that was made worse by now having sweaty / wet socks – possibly because in the gap between the second and third climbs I’d gone to have a drink from the bottle, nearly choked and ended up spitting my mouthful all over myself, my bike, and my shoes. Good times.
I had planned to stay on and do some endurance work to spin out to 40 minutes or so. But I lost my motivation and hobbled off to the shower.
Anyway, not bad. No walk tomorrow. I’m going to have to concede defeat, sit on the turbo and give my feet something of a rest. That should put me in good stead to do the FTP test on Thursday anyway.
