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

May Bivi - Of theft

Much of the day was physically lazy but over the course of the last 2 weeks I have finally drawn together a new plan to get me out of the non-Highland Trail frame of mind and back into the 3 Peaks and out the other side into next year.

This task usually takes me around 2 days.  This year it took 3 because rather than tackling the next 6 months, I couldn't resist rolling it out to next year's HT in an attempt to convince myself I can do it.

I recently drafted a chart to remind me to live my life and stop being such a slave to my job. 

Put simply, I realised that if I:

1. make a plan
2. make it achievable
3. stick to the plan

I can finish the race.*

Today I have achieved 2 of the three things and it feels like I am incrementally closer to my goal.

Once complete, I looked at what is left to do this week.  Most of the big things were ticked off my a couple of medium length rides in the Peak this week (in glorious weather) so I went out and ticked off the remainder - a 2.5km run on hills and strength training which has been almost exclusively dropped since lockdown through a lack of enthusiasm based on the crap weights I have at home and the sun being out.

Cue weight-free squats and lifting baked bean tins whilst feeding the cats and cooking dinner.

The bean tins weren't heavy enough and replaced with 750ml water bottles.

The cats came upstairs to walk underneath my plank.

So I registered to do the Highland trail virtually.  That was a silly thing to do.  After staring at the plan for the ride for 8 hours yesterday, I got all excited and registered at the last minute on a bit of fun basis.  This morning I was wide awake at 5:30 am - perfect for a good start but I went straight back to sleep until 8:30 am. 

As I ate my breakfast I realised the wind was still blowing and the motivation to ride deserted me.

Yesterday, you see, I had a rather pleasant morning.  Mr Landslide sought company for a bivi.   I'm rubbish at making long term plans but he's clever and we agreed to meet on Thursday evening at 8:30 then ride local, sleep local and ride home again (him to home-work, me to my holiday at home).

We socially distanced through the neighbourhood and up the North side of the Rivelin Valley.  Though I'm sure his Escapade would have been fine in the rock garden, it was an evening for bimbles. 

Along the lane of 100 puddles, we rode through dust pits then had to decide to ride-on or go to pitch camp.  Mr L chose to make a twilight camp instead of burn more miles so we dropped back into the river bed and made our way over to my chosen spot. 

I gave my guest the flatter spot with the view but due to prevailing wind direction bringing showers in the morning, the tarp, unfortunately, had to have its back to the view.  I delved into my comfort zone in the trees amongst the twigs with somewhere to lock the bike to a pine.

Mr L pitched in no time whilst my attempts to pitch the Ugly Tarp in the trees just led to rucked material and guy lines that were too short, insufficient headroom and poor slopes.  I gave up and pitched traditionally with a pole and some sketchy pegs in the pine needles, moss, lichen and tree roots.

We spent the next 2 hours talking shit and whittling, consuming snacks, whisky and beer and scaring away a deer which wandered into camp, it's white rump prancing away in the darkness.

The owls serenaded, the squawked then bedded down eventually.  At 1am we went to bed and I lay awake staring at the trees for some time before drifting off.

I woke up first to the sounds of mice scurrying around so stuck my earplugs in.

Mouse:1 Trep:0 

The noise persisted and I found my rucsac was over a mouse hole dressed as a tree root.  I moved it. Mouse:1 Trep:1

The mouse continued so loud I was convinced the deer was back and rummaging through my food bags but a quick look over the tarp yielded no beasties or thundering hooves.  I tried reassuring my senses by removing the earplugs but the noise of the stream made me think it was raining heavily and I got cold... but my bivi was dry.  I put my earplugs back in and slept through the rain that eventually did come at around 4am.

I was wide awake at 4:30, ready to get up and race but persuaded myself to go back to sleep - finally - and very convincingly - till 8am when I woke very delirious and physically stiff from an awkward sleeping position.

After a discussion with Karl about pillows and a bit of research, I tried out a new Thermarest inflatable pillow which was just peachy.  Improved rest and no morning neck pain and the little lovely stayed exactly where it was put all night. 

When I awoke Mr L was all breakfasted and packed up and headed home to his office. 

Whilst it was a shame we didn't get to brew up together in the rising sun, he had vacated the pole position and I decamped before moving into his dry patch of ground to brew coffee and porridge. 

I sat on my folded thermarest and laid out the Ugly Tarp and Bivi to dry in the sun before packing up my bike and pushing back up to the main trail.

The first bite of my Camelbak nozzle revealed the damage the mouse had done - little tooth marks around the split in the bite valve meant it was leaking and I needed to spend the day locking it off to stop water dropping down my leg.  Thankfully I'd locked it over night and still had water left.  Mouse:2 Trep:1

Despite the forecast breeze, it was too nice a day to head home for me.  I had limited resources with me - a cereal bar, some loveheart sweeties (couldn't resist them in one of my rare trips to Asda) and a bag of Harribo's. 

First stop was Stanage Pole as a minimum since once I'm in Wyming Brook, I can't resist. 

I knew I wouldn't be able to resist dropping down the Causeway on the other side.  The tail wind practically shoved me down.  In some kind of weird sideways whirlwind, the wind then shoved me up the Stanage Road climb so I went with the flow and decided to traipse across Burbage so I could go home via Houndkirk.

The wind blew sideways across Burbs until the Longshaw end where it was an obscured headwind in the trees so I took time to eat my only remaining vaguely nutritional food item.

The climb up to Fox House was protected by trees then the tail wind continued across Houndkirk as the backs of my calves were exfoliated by a sandstorm and walkers coming towards me pulled their Covid neck gaiters over their ears, mouths, noses and hair to keep the grit out rather than the germs.

I used the auto-assist functionality of the wind to dial in the rebound on my forks a bit more and accidentally found a few PBs - not all of which I was comfortable with.  I was sorely tempted by the takeaway kiosk at the Norfolk arms to see if they had any snacks but decided to go home and eat healthy lunch instead.

After being blanked by a middle age gnarly roadie woman in full Rapha kit I had the great pleasure of catching her up on the climb out of the dip after she bottled-it on the descent.  Her rudeness was met by the brrrrrd of a set of fully -loaded Maxxis Icon tyres as she begged a right turn when I drew alongside to overtake her. 

"On you go" I chirped cheerily as I braked to let her turn off the climb before the top... leave it there.

Once back off road I settled at a suitably scenic bench to devour the sweeties in my bar bag only to find they were gone.  Mouse:3 Trep:1

Thankfully, it didn't fancy the emergency Harribo, or couldn't get them out of the opening in the food bag.  Or maybe its brain exploded from the Aspartame in the lovehearts.

I pulled myself away from the view of the reservoirs to ride home to devour lunch, satisfied with what I had achieved on limited rations.  I've been hungrier and the ride was mostly sponsored by the giant curry I ate before leaving.

So I'm not sorry that my first day on the virtual Highland Trail will be somewhat of a shortfall.  Other smaller races are still to be raced this year and now I have a plan to get there, life seems more organised. *

*all hell being let loose, set aside.