English
Coming into this weeks race I was a bit unsure as to how I would place in the race, but with training improving week on week I was quietly confident that I could make a good race. I’ve never like to make to much of a habit of racing marathon races as distance is not really my strength, so the only race I’ve really done that I could compare this race to was the 6hr solo race at last years Wiggle Enduro 6. As with Wiggle 6 I made sure I eased up the training the week before and built up the eating to be fuelled up ready.
Going into the race and seeing the start list for this years National Champs in Pipingford, it was clear it would be tough as the defending champ from 09 was present, as well as a number of top road riders down to race, who I knew would be all to used to sitting for long hours racing in the saddle. So with this in mind my plan was to simply break up the race early on (if I could) to make sure that the guys who would be stronger on the endurance stuff would hopefully be blown out of the race early on to give me some space for the latter of the race.
Not to long after the gun I managed to get to the front of the race and start pushing the pace a bit to see who would go with it. To my fortune (minus a few wrong turns on course) the only rider to stay on my wheel was last years champ Oli Beckingsdale (Giant) and by the end of lap 1 of the 4 lap race we had already pulled a generous gap on the rest of the field and continuing to press on. Unfortunately for myself on the last quarter of lap 2, I started getting serious stomach cramp, a stitch and cramp in my leg’s all at once and I felt sure that this was my race over as we’d already been racing for nearly 2hrs and we hadn’t hit the half way mark! From that point on I lost contact with Oli and had to ease up and see if I could get rid of the cramps.
I continued the race into lap 3 and by the time I’d got 2/3′s of the way into the lap I started to get back to feeling normal. For the last part of the race I managed to just hang on, trying my best to fight 3rd (Ian Wilkinson – Endura) who was on the chase, without blowing fully. I managed to finish the race in a time of 4hrs 43mins just over 5 mins clear of Ian. That was a tough long race and crossing the line I think I recall saying that “I’m never do another marathon champs again”. Now I’ve had some food and sleep I probably would, but even so it was a hard race. I don’t really know what caused the stomach cramps half way in, maybe I eat too much or something leading into the race I don’t know, but I was still happy to continue with the race to the finish and come in 2nd position in my first Marathon Champs. Happy days!
I’m now on the build up to the last race of the season which will be the last round of the British Mountain Bike Series in Plymouth on the 25th of this month, which I’m hoping will be my race of the season!
Report, Results & Pics
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtb/article/mtb20100912–Report–British-Marathon-Championships-0
