It would be very dull of me to post about a nutrition strategy and not the actual event...
So, there was a Big Bike Ride. In my case this was big in terms of number of entrants rather than distance, since I did the 50 miles (225 riders) rather than the 100 (91 riders). Preparation was a bit less than ideal, thanks to my own impetuosity (and it being fiona_kitty's birthday party the night before); it was probably OK to do parkrun on the day before the event, but I shouldn't have decided to run more quickly after half distance just because I felt good, and I certainly shouldn't have done the same thing the previous night. I don't know what if any effect on my overall endurance levels the two 26:4x 5k runs had, but I can't imagine it was positive (also, I probably shouldn't have had more than one alcoholic drink at the Haymakers, but meh. A pint of alcoholic ginger beer can't exactly be that devastating). The plan for next week is not to do that.
On the day I got everything ready nice and early, set off for the start line, got most of the way down Mill Road, realised I'd left my water bottles behind and had to go back and try again. Still, arrived in plenty of time, registered, and got to set off just before nine since they were allowing 50 mile riders to start earlier than the published timeline advertised. The weather wasn't nearly as hot as I was expecting, which was good, but then we had two heavy rain showers around 20 km and 40 km, which weren't pleasant to cycle through and which also made the roads sufficiently wet that cycling along them kicked up enough spray to completely soak my lower legs and socks (after I finished, when I peeled my socks off the skin beneath them was about two shades lighter than the exposed skin. Ugh.) A lot of the roads also had a fair bit of gravel on them - I'd wager that was potentially a result of damage from the very heavy overnight rain - which made downhill sections very scary as I was not at all confident of staying upright if I tried to corner on possibly-loose wet roads. I passed two fallers, one of whom looked like he might well have broken a collarbone - I used my brakes rather more than usual coming downhill.
There was quite a lot of that, too, the route being much hillier than I expected it to be from naively looking at the profile. I seemed to be much better at these than the average rider, based on the number of people I was overtaking going up them, but it did prove very hard work, and in the final 10 km or so I was very tired indeed, which might have contributed to the wrong turning I took that added an extra 2 km to the total distance I rode. That doesn't entirely bode well for next Sunday's event, which is around 10 miles further (though, admittedly, I won't be riding to and from the start line, which added another five miles to last week's efforts - and I think the course might be a bit flatter, too, so hopefully it'll be OK). I didn't quite manage my target time of 3 hours 20 minutes; my official time was 3:29:54, which was the 29th fastest 50-mile rider; my time at the 80 kilometre mark was 3:22:23, and anywhere between 3:22:22 and 3:24:08 would have been good for 18th. So I guess that wasn't too bad for a first attempt? We'll see how next week goes.
With less rain, hopefully.
On the day I got everything ready nice and early, set off for the start line, got most of the way down Mill Road, realised I'd left my water bottles behind and had to go back and try again. Still, arrived in plenty of time, registered, and got to set off just before nine since they were allowing 50 mile riders to start earlier than the published timeline advertised. The weather wasn't nearly as hot as I was expecting, which was good, but then we had two heavy rain showers around 20 km and 40 km, which weren't pleasant to cycle through and which also made the roads sufficiently wet that cycling along them kicked up enough spray to completely soak my lower legs and socks (after I finished, when I peeled my socks off the skin beneath them was about two shades lighter than the exposed skin. Ugh.) A lot of the roads also had a fair bit of gravel on them - I'd wager that was potentially a result of damage from the very heavy overnight rain - which made downhill sections very scary as I was not at all confident of staying upright if I tried to corner on possibly-loose wet roads. I passed two fallers, one of whom looked like he might well have broken a collarbone - I used my brakes rather more than usual coming downhill.
There was quite a lot of that, too, the route being much hillier than I expected it to be from naively looking at the profile. I seemed to be much better at these than the average rider, based on the number of people I was overtaking going up them, but it did prove very hard work, and in the final 10 km or so I was very tired indeed, which might have contributed to the wrong turning I took that added an extra 2 km to the total distance I rode. That doesn't entirely bode well for next Sunday's event, which is around 10 miles further (though, admittedly, I won't be riding to and from the start line, which added another five miles to last week's efforts - and I think the course might be a bit flatter, too, so hopefully it'll be OK). I didn't quite manage my target time of 3 hours 20 minutes; my official time was 3:29:54, which was the 29th fastest 50-mile rider; my time at the 80 kilometre mark was 3:22:23, and anywhere between 3:22:22 and 3:24:08 would have been good for 18th. So I guess that wasn't too bad for a first attempt? We'll see how next week goes.
With less rain, hopefully.