Lancashire RC 12 Hour 6/9/09
I quite enjoy a long ride so decided to enter the 12 (along with 3 other club members), quite a niche event which reflects in the number of entries – just 38. There aren't too many 12 hour races annually in the UK and this one was local(ish) to me out on the A6/Fylde. Everything on the run up to the event went well apart from lack of training miles so off I set at 06:34 on a dry and overcast Sunday morning. I had decided to ride to a HR and for the 1st 3 ½ hours I seemed to be moving very well with nobody passing me. My 50 split was just over 22mph but then at 3:25 I started to feel terrible. I was on a section into the wind and I had to drop onto the small ring and my speed dropped from 20 down to 16. For 40 minutes I felt like my body had had enough – little energy, aches, cramps, the voice in my head shouting stop. The keyword to this event seems to be ‘just keep going’ which sums it up very well. I carried on but left it in the small ring and soon rode through the bad patch. After that I felt good all afternoon with no other lows. I rode on the small ring for around 4 hours before banging the 53 back in and then it stayed in. After the 4 hour mark my HR dropped 10 into the high 140’s (around 45 less than max) and stayed constant at that for the rest of the day so I suspect I had set off a little too quickly. Around 20 club members were out on the course at various times of the day shouting support and offering up bottles which really gave a boost and put me on a high. In the last 4 hours of the race I was able to wind it up and managed to finish very strongly, getting my average back up from the morning’s slow section. My eating/drink strategy went without a hitch and 2 hours from the end I stuffed a Zipvit caffeine gel into my cake hole which was like pressing a turbo button. For around an hour I was flying, leaving behind 3 guys that I had been close to for an hour or so – great stuff but tasted bloody awful! This morning my left hand is still tingling and my legs are a little on the stiff side and I expect I will eat like a horse today! I Am yet to look at my Garmin which should have recorded the ride and managed to stay on for 12 hours, albeit with a battery low alert for the last hour. A few days off now before some running and cycling in Sunny Mallorca and fingers crossed for some fell races when I get back!
Stats:
5 Litres of fluid (mosty PSP22 & GO)
5 Bannanas
6 cold sausages
5 PSP GO gels
1 Zipvit caffeine Gel (turbo tackle)
2 Terys Chocolate orange bars
227.94 miles covered (19 average as near as damn it) with 3,500' of ascent.
1st Team (twenty quid each)
2nd team counter (got beat by 3 miles from an 18,000 mile a year clubmate)
Winner did 253 miles
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