You Don't Know How Hard is Too Hard...

... Until You Blow!

Or, Fortune Favours the Brave!

Or (Reg's particular favourite) Stupid is as Stupid does.

Don't worry, all will become clear. This weekend was the 3rd leg of the UK HIM Tour for Reg and I; the Aberfeldy Middle Distance race in the Highlands of Scotland. Whilst Reg had the easy option of flying to Edinburgh and a couple of hours drive I was faced with a 900 mile round trip; the things we do for our sport.

I love this race and don't understand why more people don't do it; it beats the pants off The Vitruvian in every respect apart from the travelling aspect. The swim is in Loch Tay; although dark the water is crystal clear and this year it was officially 12.5 degrees. Cold enough to take your breath away when your first got in but OK once you were swimming. The bike is 92km of the complete cycling challenge; tough climbs that are both steep and long; technical descents; amazing descents; scary fast descents; constantly varying terrain; some flat bits (but not much); and stunning scenery. The run is 21km of undulating Scottish scenery. In short, it is a brilliant race.

Kelda had travelled down with her husband to give us some support and we took full advantage of them by having them carry spare drinks bottle for us to the feed stations so we didn't have to carry the extra weight up the big hill on the bike. Weight Weenies - you've got to love them! Seriously though, the support was great and very much appreciated.

So how did it go?

The swim was fine and I was out of the water in a little over 35 minutes; very happy with that considering how little I have been swimming lately. As is usual I had a lengthy T1, made longer this time by the addition of putting on calf guard compression thingies for the first time in a race. And no, I hadn't practised it beforehand. And no, they don't slide easily over wet skin. Reg had had a good swim and a better T1 than me (no surprises there) but I just edged him out of T1 although he got to the mount line before me.

Onto the bike and I quickly put Reg in his place by overtaking him after a few hundred metres. There is a couple of miles of flat and fast road and a chance to get a gel and some drink down before you hit the first hill (is Schiehallion a hill or a mountain?), all 8km of it! The gradient varies and there are a couple of false summits and brief down hills but it is essentially skywards for 8km. I was riding my road bike with a compact chainset and made plenty of use of the 34-25 lowest gear, spinning easily up the hill and avoiding going "into the red". At the top you head towards Loch Rannoch but there is some more climbing before you start the descent; this is a very technical descent with a lot of blind corners and hairpin bends, meaning you never get a chance to really build up speed and your bike handling skills are well tested. Alongside the loch and I was amazed how comfortable I felt and the speed I was travelling at; I wanted to reach the far end of the loch (approx halfway point) in less than 1:30 and I got there in 1:24:30. Woo hoo! However, my joy was shortlived; as I turned the corner I realised I had been pushed along by a fairly sizeable wind and simply hadn't realised it, and this wind would now be in my face for almost the whole of the return leg. Never mind, head down and get on with it. It was about this time that I felt the need to pee, and I tried really hard to "let it go" on the downhills, but my subconscious wouldn't let me. "You've paid for these shoes, I'm not going to let you p**s in them", seemed to be the message, so eventually I had to stop. Whilst stopped, Reg came whizzing by offering some wise words of encouragement, or at least that's what I thought they were. He was clearly having a good ride. As we all know, once you start, you just can't stop, and I was at the roadside for what seemed like an eternity before I was able to get going again; Reg now had a sizeable lead on me and I was going to have to work hard to pull it back. But again, I got my head down and got stuck into the task and eventually caught him up on the steepest climb back up Schiehallion. This is tough and Reg and I climbed it together (with due respect for the drafting rules, of course, although what draft effect is there at 13kmh?). Reg got to the top about 10m in front of me and we headed onto the 8km descent; the first part is fairly open with good visibility of the road, then you get a short uphill before a steeper, more technical descent with tight, blind corners. On the first part Reg had a clear edge; his 53-12 standard gearing had a distinct speed advantage over my compact top gear of 50-12, although I was spinning like a dervish to try and keep up. For this first part, the speed never dropped below 50kmh and was more often above 60. After the short uphill we hit the technical part and my better knowledge of the course allowed me to get ahead; this is an AWESOME descent, banking the bike into corners at 60kmh and trying to accelerate out of them, trying to make it flow smoothly. At the bottom of the hill there is about a 5 mile run in to Aberfeldy and T2, and I decided to make a break for it and got my head down for some serious TT action. I quickly dropped Reg and blew passed another competitor and shortly afterwards realised I had seriously underestimated just how far away T2 was. Oh well. I got to T2 about 15 seconds in front of Reg and left with about a 10m advantage.

Onto the run and Reg was off like a scalded cat, setting a seriously hot pace straight out of the trap (please note that all references to speed are based on Reg and my abilities and no way infer we are in Daz's or Sags' league). Within the first mile he must have pulled out some 200m or so and after stretching it a little more in the next half mile it started to stabilise. And then reduce. Yes, I was catching Reg. To be honest, I felt great, better than any other time this season when starting on a run. With markers every mile I hit my lap timer at mile 1 and the next miles were reeled off in 7:43, 7:42, 7:46, 7:48. Slowly, ever so slowly I was catching Reg; I was feeling really good and even began to contemplate whether my HIM run PB may be on. By this time I had just about caught Reg and after going passed him decided it would be a good idea to put in an effort to try and break him, and ran the next mile in 7:40 with the main effort being on a long incline. But all was not well. At the 1st feed station I had taken some water and as it hit my stomach I had some stomach cramps that were only relieved by a large "release of pressure", if you know what I mean. Shortly after my effort we hit the 2nd feed station and I again took on water. Again, as it hit my stomach I was affected by stomach cramps, but more severe this time, and as well as a large "release of pressure" had to stop for a wee that allowed Reg to pull ahead once more. I reached the turnaround point in a little over 51 minutes so my run PB was certainly on. After the turnaround point there was a short downhill and then a long gentle incline, but as I demanded more from my body to catch Reg up the hill the stomach cramps returned and it was impossible to continue running hard and I was reduced to a walk. It seemed that every time the cramps subsided and I tried to run they would return; my race was effectively over and I could only watch as Reg ran into the distance and the wheels came off my race. The next miles were covered in 13.33 (the worst of the cramps), 9.29, 9.29, 9.38, 11.09 (more bad cramps) but then eased off to allow me to finish with a bit of a flourish with a mile of 8:11 before a final "sprint" into the finishing chute, and sanctuary. There is, though, an interesting postscript to this. My efforts in running down Reg, overtaking him and then pushing on had forced Reg to compromise his own race strategy and he increased his speed to stay with me. What I didn't know was that a mile after my race fell apart then so did Reg's, in similarly spectacular style!

At the finish I was completely spent. Reg told me later that Kelda was speaking to me at the finish line but I have absolutely no recollection whatsoever of this - sorry! After a little time collecting my thoughts Reg came and told me his own sorry story and we both had a right laugh about how stupid we both were. My HIM run PB is 1:43:03 (not 1:40 as I thought - I've just checked) or 7:52 per mile so I was running well under that until I decided to "go for broke"! But, I now know that I should be able to run at this sort of pace and provided I am sensible and don't go mad then a run PB should be achievable.

Splits:

Swim T1 Bike T2 Run Total Position Overall Position Age Group
Mick 36:19 3:46 3:03:10 1:07 1:53:42 5:38:07 79 22
Reg 37:17 2:50 3:03:27 1:03 1:50:06 5:34:45 71 29

I have gone to The Edge and stared into The Abyss. How hard is too hard? Well 7:40 per mile is clearly too hard for me at the moment. On this occasion fortune did not favour the brave; or perhaps it wasn't bravery but stupidity. And how stupid was I (or indeed, were we?) to try and make a break for it when still 7 miles from home? At least I tried.

I have 2 more races this year - The Vitruvian on 6 Sep and then the final leg of the HIM UK Tour at the Half-Ireman on 13 Sep. The Vitruvian has been given A status for me with sub 5 hour race, sub 2:30 bike and sub 1:40 run times being targeted. Sounds easy when you say it like that. I have a 2 week block of training now to work on something (I haven't worked out what yet) and then it will be 2 weekends in September to summarise my whole season.

Looking forward to it.

(Hopefully there will be some pictures to follow)