The Narcissist in Training - Aug '18

This summer I spent 10 days in Italy at my mother’s place, along with my daughter Rhiannon. There were two things I was sure of during that holiday: one was that Rhiannon would not get up early and the other that I would. Perhaps I should make that three things: the great food, wine and daily aperitif would add “holiday weight”.

I wasn’t keen on the whole weight gaining concept, so I decided to bring my bike on holiday and train each morning, either cycling, running or swimming. I was back in triathlon training mode. My mother lives at the foot of some decent hills, and close to the sea, so I could choose each day whether to do a tough hill climb and easy descent, or head for the coast and run/cycle along that.

The first run was hard. Very hard. It was hot and humid, and post run I thought I’d try and take a selfie that showed it. I looked at the picture and thought – yeah, not bad. Tweaked it a bit, and thought – yes, that’s OK to post on Facebook. I received positive feedback.

The next day I rode. Decided on the hill climb, which was a tad shy of 9km with an average gradient of 6%. Again at the top I took another selfie trying to show the hard work that went into the climb. I think I succeeded. 

I had to complete the set. A swim picture. It’ll do.

As I ran back to my mum’s after taking this picture one thought kept returning to me – am I turning into a proper narcissist?

Tour of Cambridge - June '18

Some readers of this blog will know that in my younger days I was a pretty successful sailor, going off to various World and European Championships. Occasionally on podiums, though sadly never the top one. These championships were not Olympic class boats, which meant that I never represented a GB team as such. 

As I’ve been recently hanging around with triathletes and cyclists who have, and have the team kit to prove it, I was feeling a little jealous. Could I get one?

Paul, a guy at work who’d been to the Masters World Cycling Championships in France in 2017 thought I wasn’t far off qualifying pace to go to the 2018 world’s. So I entered the Tour of Cambridge, the UK’s qualifying race. I also entered a lower key race the following weekend to gauge my ability.

So one Sunday in May I found myself on the start line with 40 or so other riders about to take part in an 80 minute plus 3 laps race around an aerodrome. We started. I tried to put myself in the middle of the peloton for wind protection, but every other rider had the same idea. My inexperience counted against me, as I couldn’t force my way in and so had to ride on the edge of the group.

We gradually built up speed, and within a lap we were going pretty much full pelt. Holy moly, but it was fast. Very. Every time I looked down we were around the 40km/h (~25mph) mark. This was hard. There was a corner on the course whereby the peloton slowed to go round, then accelerated out of it up a short ramp. That acceleration was killing me, and each lap it was getting harder and harder for me to stick with the peloton.

At around 45 minutes the inevitable happened. I fell out of the back, and without the protection of the peloton there was no way I could ride at their pace. I completed the race long after the others - only injury or a mechanical would make me pull out of a race.

Damn – not looking good for the ToC, which would be a good 3 hour race, in a month’s time. Still, one positive – I wasn’t fazed by riding at that pace in a group.

I did up my training. Paul and I did turbo sessions at the local gym. I managed a few long rides. But all too soon race weekend was upon me.

Unfortunately Paul's team, who I’d planned on riding with, withdrew at the last minute. I was just going to have to pick a group.

Once again the pace was fearsome. But I’d learnt a bit, and was able to stay in the peloton nicely. After 30 or so mintes, a split did occur where a stronger group[ managed to get away. But that was OK, I was feeling reasonably good. I didn’t really see the landscape, it was all a blur.

A while later, we saw that the leading group had been held up by a crash, and we were not that far behind. Cue another acceleration. We formed a line of pairs, with exhortations to keep pulling so we could all re-group as a single peloton. I allowed myself to be forced to the front, taking the odd turn.

Then disaster. I led into a sharp right hander with too much pace. Went off the road, up a small embankment, went along it, narrowly missed a signpost, went down into a ditch, managed to ride back out of it, back onto the road. How I stayed upright I’ll never know. But I was upright, but also staring at the rapidly disappearing peloton that up until then I’d been in.

I tried to calm my heart, and accelerate to get back on, but it was futile. Once again I’d been spat out of the back. However this time I lasted 90 minutes into the race. I won’t say too much about the rest of it. I battled on, working as hard as I could. I came across another solo cyclist and we tried to work with each other to get the speed back up, which worked for a while. Then we came across a very steep hill that went through a town, and I was really suffering. My water bottle was empty, and I was desperate to drink. Unbelievably a guy standing outside a house on that very hill saw my pain and thrust me a full water bottle – shouting “keep it!”.

The end could not come soon enough. I was spent.

On a positive note I lasted for 90 minutes at a pace of around 40km/h, in a bunch. So that was good.

I didn’t qualify. So that was bad. 

Still, I’ve entered for next year. I can try again.