*** WARNING - LONG POST ***
Hope noone minds, but thought it useful to give a report on my first 300Km. Useful for who? I don't know, but it's kind of nicer to write about it rather than ride it
!!!
Well that has to count as the single hardest thing I've ever done! What a route, absolutely amazing views and countryside and the weather was in the main really good.
Shame I felt completely rubbish. About 2 miles into the ride I was feeling sluggish and perhaps I should have seen the warning signs and turned back there and then.
But all this talk of bl**dy minded determination on yacf was in my head and come rain, shine or anything else that could be thrown at me, including feeling like death, I was going to finish this ride.
I felt ill at the start and so missed the official start at 5am, so was 10 minutes behind everyone else starting, but finally caught the tail end just before Llandovery, but it was really, really hard going. Had something to eat there and felt a little better.
Looking at the route sheet I felt comforted that next it was a short stage, only 42Km to the next control. Ha ha, I have a lot to learn about Audax - short stage must mean hilly stage! That was a tough one to Tregaron, with one bit where I honestly thought I was going to go over backwards on the bike, I had no energy to get out of the saddle and was pulling that hard on the handlebars that I swear the front wheel left the ground.
Just before Tregaron, I had a blow out at high speed coming down the hill, but managed to control it. Having looked at the tube I can only assume that it was because of the heat of the rim from all the braking. I was only using the brakes when absolutely necessary (in my head), but the rim was absolutely scorching, so much so that I actually burnt my fingers when taking the front wheel out!!!
Pretty much the rest of the ride until Talybont-on-Usk was spent suffering at a silly slow pace and with constant thoughts of packing but with the reality being that the only way of getting home was by bike so I may as well just keep going.
Fortunately a stop at the White Hart Inn allowed me some time to recover and start to feel a little more like my usual self (only 14 hours too late!!). Having chatted with Richard (Exeter Wheelers), Irish Alan on fixed and my team mate Andy Dade, we thought that perhaps 3 and half hours back was a reasonable estimate, so hopefully back for around 10.30pm!!! Alan mentioned that I had until after 1am to finish - which I thought was highly amusing!
The Torpantau climb is an absolute beast and for sure one of the hardest I've done, maybe because of the time in the ride when it comes, and I was determined I was going to have a good go at it. Alan on fixed clearly wasn't even going to contemplate this, poor guy having to pretty much push his bike all the way up from the bottom!
I managed to make it just past the cattle grid (about 7/8's of the way up), but the legs just would not take anymore, so I have to admit to having walked the last little bit. I know I could nail this climb if I was feeling better and fresher, but yesterday, well I was quite proud that I made it as far as I did.
From there I felt surprisingly good, probably because I know the roads from Merthyr like the back of my hand and knew I was nearing the end, and so made excellent progress. I got back to Tongwynlais just before 10pm, so had actually completed the last 57Km in under 3 hours (2 hours 53 to be precise), which I reckon under the circumstances is pretty good - ironically I felt better during the last 57Km than I did for the first, how weird is that?
Total time was 16 hours 57, although accordingly to my computer I was only riding for 13 hours 45 minutes of that. Calories burnt went over 10,000!!! Average speed for time riding was 13.5MPH.
So there you go, I managed my first 300Km and am pretty proud to be honest. I've not had many worse days in the saddle in terms of how I felt but there was no way I was going to give in!
Lessons learnt, however, are (1) I need a new saddle, going to try out a Brooks soon, and (2) a saddle bag (probably a Barley), since keeping all my stuff in my back pockets just felt really uncomfortable and I think as well caused some back pain because of the weight of various items.
I'm pleased to have completed the ride but it has not exactly given me the confidence to go on to do a 400 let alone a 600, but after a couple of days I hope my confidence will return and also realise that we all have bad days and this was one of them. Perhaps some more 200s and another crack at a 300 would be a better approach, but you never know with me!
