Thoughts on finishing the Peak 200.

I woke up this morning, absolutely exhausted and thought, “How the fuk do I finish the highland trail when this is how I will feel at the end of day 1?"

This is almost a rhetorical question because most of my exhaustion from yesterday can be put down to the heat – and given current performance, there is little chance of heat exhaustion occurring when I turn up to actually race an event. 

Joking about the weather aside, I did at least realise that the main source of my exhaustion at that time was lying in bed with nothing to eat.

So despite my sore ankles, heavy calf muscles and aching wrists, I got out of bed and went to the loo where I realised that I should be congratulating myself on getting to the end of day 2 on the Highland trail as “yesterday” I rode over 235km and it was a 29.5hour day.

Still, I continued to contemplate all the people I know who have completed the Highland Trail.  How awesome you are (Alan – of course, Lee, Jennie, Ian, Karl, Sean, Javi, Dave, Rich and Tom, Martin, Clem… I could go on). 

I have a colleague at work who is a coach for a regional archery squad and close to the national team and he likes to try his skills out on me from time to time.  He likes to remind me that I’m pretty special too (but I’m too humble for that).  After I entertained him once with tales of my old Triathlon racing internationally and insisted that I still wasn’t that good he told me (in a nice way) to take a look at myself and what I just said. 

You too can be aero on a cyclo-cross bike
that just did 500 miles over the Rockies

In a way he was right and I fully appreciate what he was trying to do but I still maintain (with Triathlon in particular) that if I can do it anyone can – all you need to do with Triathlon is get reasonably fit, train with a modicum of effort in a semi-random way and then, most importantly, bother to fill in the form and have enough money and enthusiasm to travel to whatever championships you qualify for and spend exorbitant additional money on the kit and the race fee.  Tick – but there’s only so many times you get to milk this* cash cow.

I had a think about what I did yesterday.  There were so many times towards the end that I just packed up and went home.  It would have been an easy ride.  From 1:30 to 5pm, I did three small “loops” of my local playground before I finally turned for home.  I thought about all the time I could have saved here and there and it would be good if I paced it better and just, it’d be easier to come back and do it another time and then I realised that doing it another time might not be an option – so better to get it over and done with, having put the effort in so-far. 

Those last “loops” were so so painful.  I think every race has a hateful part – and in most cases it will be the end of the ride, regardless of your preferences for terrain and scenery.  For me, the end of this ride was atrocious – those same trails I know and love day in, day out – even finding some new ones didn’t help a bit.

So back to the Highland Trail.  I made my toast and a cup of tea and thought of the inconvenience of not having those recovery tools to hand in Scotland – just a packet of crisps and a bit of chocolate saved over from yesterday and some water from out of the stream. 

I thought of my mousing experience from Tuesday and was glad that in Scotland I will be carrying my superlight tent – that’s all that came from that. (also, I know from experience that the tent isn't completely mouse-proof).

My ankles have already stopped aching enough to walk mostly normally and my feet could see the inside of a pair of cycling shoes again, without flinching too badly.  As Lee said in joining the dots – I can’t walk today, but of course I can.

I remembered that not only did I ride day 2 of the “Highland Trail” yesterday, I also rode the last day – through the night to get back to the finish - give or take the 1.5 hour stop which mainly consisted of warming up again and eating a packet of Rolos… and it was easy! 

The pitch was easy, the sleep came easy, I woke up with the daylight – not the alarm - and I got easily back on my bike.

I contemplated a discussion I had last year about whether big rides were even an essential part of the Highland Trail training package and I think they still might be – for me at least. 

I’m still learning new things with every adventure I have – sometimes major, sometimes so minor as, it probably was worth popping home to get that extra light because riding in the dark would’ve been so much easier with it than without it… or maybe get myself a better headtorch as dedicated spare. 

I learned all these new things about the day after recovery and I think that I need to do the longer rides to get my joints and tendons ready for the strains of day-in-day-out riding again.  When I finished Ireland (after a brief rest) I was ready for more, not less.

So the plan for next year will get a little tweak - a good tweak - to stick me back in my comfort zone of being out, not in.  So when the "how the hell?" kicks in again, I will at least have an answer - just like you did last time.  And for that reason, I'm extremely glad I persevered with the Peak 200.

*me