Jurassic Beast Sportive - Beast by name, Beast by nature

Today was the Jurassic Beast sportive, based at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset, another one of the excellent Wiggle series. I was not familiar with the area but Wiggle rated it as 4/5 for toughness and a work colleague is from the area and gave me a quick run down of what I could expect. Despite this, I was still unprepared for the sheer number of hills I would encounter and their severity. The weather forecast leading up to the event was awful, with heavy rain and 20mph winds forecast. Fortunately the heavy rain held off and we only got wet a couple of times, but the wind was as forecast, although it didn't appear to be in the forecast direction. As every cyclist knows, a heavy wind is always in your face!

I was up at 0500 and after walking the dog I had a hearty breakfast (cheese omelette, 1 weetabix with muesli, orange juice and coffee) and was out the door at 0555. The satnav said journey time would be 1:45 but that's just a challenge, and I arrived at 0720 in good time to register, get my kit sorted and be on the startline for the first wave just after 0800. Registration and the toilets were in the Tank Museum, and the Army were clearly unprepared for a horde of cyclists as 3 of the 4 male 'traps' were U/S; glad I got there early!

Off we set and the early pace was set by a guy in full Wiggle cycle kit; it seems that he recced the route recently and was going at a fair old pace. No surprise then that when the route split at about 5 miles he headed off on the short route - I should have seen that coming. There were not many entered for this sportive and the first wave consisted of just 7 cyclists; a couple headed off on the short route and the first big hill shedded another couple leaving just 3 of us at the front. We seemed to be reasonably matched although strong in different areas. The first feed station came at about 28 miles and I swapped water for energy drink and loaded up on flapjack - the fuel of champions! We set off after a short break and were caught soon afterwards by a very strong cyclist and the young lad who was with us caught his wheel and disappeared off into the distance. So then we were 2. At this stage we were sheltered from the wind but the hills were long and painful. I mentioned in my earlier post on cadence that when my cadence drops I lose power quite quickly, and the long 15%+ hills were really affecting my cadence. These hills were a real grind completed by mixing up seated and standing climbing and just gritting my teeth. My legs were screaming and my heart rate was bouncing around above 90% for long periods.

Unusually for a sportive, at least the ones I have done, the longer route puts the extra mileage in at the beginning rather than the end, so we picked up the standard route after doing about 40 miles and thereafter passed a constant stream of cyclists, usually in varying degrees of distress on the big climbs. My buddy and I were now also struggling on the hills; I was able to get down on the drops and put some TT-style efforts in when the conditions were favourable, but these were few and far between. My legs were hurting from all the hills and I just wasn't able to produce decent power at such low cadences. This was turning into a long and painful ride. At the last feed station I stretched off, fuelled up with flapjack and jelly beans and my buddy and I set off. We asked at the feed station what the profile of the last section was and was told it was relatively flat with a couple of hills. I can only say that the term 'relatively flat' must have related to all the hills that had gone before, because it was far from flat! I was hurting, a lot, and it was not helped by my buddy getting a second wind and pushing on for home. I hung on as best I could while stuffing gels and Hi-5 down my neck in a desperate attempt to get sufficient energy to take my turn on the front. I did manage it a few times, including one sparkling turn where we maintained 45+kmh for a few kms.

The last few kms seemed to by all uphill; obviously they weren't but my legs were telling me otherwise. At the finish my bike computer said we completed 163kms in 5 hours 58 minutes of riding time; I suspect my overall time will be about 6 hours 10 - 15 minutes taking into consideration the feed stops. At the end I was in bits; I loaded my bike up and drove home then climbed into a lovely hot bath for a well earned soak. I'm now sat here with very sore legs and stairs are a challenge; anyone who has done an Ironman or a marathon will know what I mean.

I'm not sure why I was relatively poor on the hills today; 2 weeks ago I was strong although I will be the first to admit that the New Forest sportive was not exactly a hill-fest. Maybe the 180km of cycling I had already clocked up this week had a negative impact. This coming week will be all about recovery but I will add the hard turbo sessions in later in the week to maximise the training effect as I go on holiday to Italy on 15 May and there will no no training at all that week. Just eating and drinking!

I must say a quick thank you to my cycling buddy of today, Simon on the very nice carbon Felt. There were times today when he pulled me through when I was not feeling too great. I would also like to say that the 2 Wiggle sportive series races I have attended this year have been well organised, well signposted (although 1 signpost did go AWOL on a major roundabout today) and generally well run events.

I will post the ride profile when I get around to downloading it.

And as an additional bonus my average bike mileage has just broke through the 200km per week barrier since this year's structured programme started in January.

I'm off to rest now. Recover well folks.