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Recovery

Just over 2 weeks have past since I won the 24hr Solo National Championships and the reality of winning one of my major targets for the year is only just starting to sink in. I certainly pushed my body hard during the race which became evident afterwards as I was quite unwell with fever like symptoms and unable to eat. I thought seriously about taking myself to hospital, but a combination of a cold bath and using cold, wet towels on my head to cool me down I started to feel a little better. My sleep pattern was a real mess, so I only managed a few hours sleep the day after the race but at least I awoke feeling much better and able to eat again.

The next few days I slowly started to feel better, but as usual I had a big slump on the Wednesday & Thursday as the normal daily routine returned I struggled with tiredness and could not stop eating. My appetite was huge and I was craving junk food all the time. I was back on the bike pretty quickly afterwards, but only for commuting to work and riding the 4 miles into town. It was good to turn the pedal at a steady pace but I had no reason to get back to training too soon.

It took well over a week for me to feel anything like normal again, but I did seem to be recovering quicker than I did after Mountain Mayhem last year. 10 days after the race I had a reason to get back on a bike, my new Verenti Rhigos 3 had arrived and I headed out with a friend to give it a test ride. I jumped in at the deep end a bit and we did 60 miles with a few big climbs thrown in. Most of the ride felt fine but I had a few tweaks in my legs, groin and back that gave me a few worries but I made it to the end of the ride in one piece. I managed just one other ride that week and put in a few harder intervals to test the legs. To my amazement I was pushing out higher power number on the climbs than before the UK 24hr! That is one massive advantage to using a Powertap, there is no guesswork it tells you exactly how hard your riding.

Matt Page Verenti Dragon Ride 2010

This gave me a real boost in confidence and I arrived at the Verenti Dragon Ride on Sunday hopeful of at least keeping my personal 100% Gold time record from the 2 previous sportives I have done. The time needed to get the gold was 6hrs 30min, which worked out as an average of 18.5mph. I started in the front group with Magnus Backstedt and his team and a few others who looked quite sharp. The initial pace was very leisurely and a very big group formed, no one seemed too concerned about the speed. It was about an hour in when we arrived at the first of the climbs, Bwlch 1. As soon as we hit the lower slopes I upped the pace and 5 other riders followed me. We stayed together for a long time, all the way around to Cimla. We had worked quite well together to this point, everyone willing to do some work although it was evident that a few were stronger than others. At the top of Cimla we were down to 5 and the on the lower slopes of Bwlch 2 we dropped another rider. Going into the steeper slopes the 3 other riders pulled away from me, so I just stuck to my own pace and got to the top a few minutes behind them. I knew there was no chance of catching them from here on, with 3 of them able to share the work on the flat sections to the finish. I crossed the line to finish in 5hrs 49min, well inside the Gold standard time and an average speed of 20.5mph and ended up being the 9th fastest time, not bad for a Mountain Biker recovering from a 24hr race!

The next 2 weeks are set for more recovery and to ease myself back into a proper training regime. I will be at Mountain Mayhem but not racing solo this year. Instead I will be there in a team to soak up the atmosphere which you never fully experience when racing solo.