I did my second audax of the summer, yesterday, which was the Kingston Wheelers Fifth Continent 300km. I’ve done 4 300km events in the last few years and I generally enjoy them as they are a really long day out on the bike but you’re normally back before it starts getting dark, so enough of a challenge to make it worth while but not stupidly so. That was the idea, but it didn’t quite go to plan. I knew the weather was going to deteriorate in the second half of the ride but I wasn’t too bothered. When I was training for long course and HIM tris, I’d always go out, pretty much whatever the weather, but now I’m not racing anymore I will often take the soft option but I’ve ridden in some filthy conditions so felt ok about it.
I had an early start, hoping to get on the road before 6am but unfortunately I had not got any sleep. I don’t know why as normally this isn’t a problem, but I felt very tired as I got ready to go and had my porridge breakfast. I knew once I got going I’d probably be ok. I ended up leaving at 5:45am. Normally in audax they set you off at the published time but for some reason they had a half hour window which meant I ended up setting off on my own and I spent the first hour going through Morden and SW London to head out to Kent. Pretty much straight away I realised that I had stomach issues. The bowl of porridge that I had for breakfast was just sitting like a ball in my stomach and I felt really bloated. This has happened a few times in the last couple of years, specifically after eating porridge. I think in future, I’m going to have to give up on this despite it being my pre-event breakfast of choice. I can only assume I’ve become intolerant to something in it. I was a Tull at feeling sick but as I gently ate the odd flapjack bar I could tell that o wasn’t digesting food easily, which for an event that was going to take me well over 12 hours was sub-optimal!
After an hour or so I caught a rider who had set out 15 minutes before me, who I knew from my son’s squash club, so we rode together for a couple of hours, until we hit the first control. As we left, and hit a couple of hills, he started easily pulling away from me so I told him to go on. I was already starting to feel low on energy and I just wanted to ride at my own, slow pace and manage my own stomach and energy levels as best o could. I didn’t really think about quitting for the simple reason that it would have been a massive ball ache to route to a train station and get home and it probably would have cost a lot too. I’d also been really looking forward to this event, with nothing else in my calendar, it was the only event I had planned all summer and to dnf was just not what I wanted to do. So it was just time to engage my audax attitude and keep pedalling.
As I reached the halfway point at Dungeness, things were perking up. The increasing wind was on my side and it was brightening up, after threatening rain for the last few hours, but then I swung west, straight into a block headwind. Well, at least it hasn’t started raining! And then it started to rain, really hard! The temperature and visibility dropped and it actually felt more like November that late July. I couldn’t work out what was worse, going up hill and barely having enough energy to turn the pedals over or hitting the very fast descents and barely being able to see where I was going with the stinging rain. I’d been on my own for about 6 hours when a couple of riders at a. Control caught up with me, and I ended up leaving with one of them (a guy called Chris Whitty, but not THE Chris Whitty!) we rode together for about 30 minutes before I started struggling on the increasingly steep hills, so I told him to crack on. I was much happier in my current state to just focus on me and managing my effort and stomach. I’d bought a big bag of fruit pastilles and so I would treat myself to completing 10kms by eating a few pastilles. I found over the next hour or so that my energy levels rose and the hills felt easier and my stomach settled down. By now I’d been on the road for just over 12 hours and I was finally feeling human again. This made it easier to cope with the very wet conditions which were quite tricky to cycle in, particularly on the single track gravel roads that we had been routed onto. The rain had washed all the lube off my chain and mechs, so I found it increasingly difficult to get my chain onto the big ring. In the end I just couldn’t be bothered to try so the entire last 100kms was in the small ring, a bit like a car going into engine limp mode.
At the final control, with 50kms to go, I found Chris still eating so I had a quick coffee and some crisps and we left together again. This time, I was able to stay with him until the end. My last three hours were by far the best, despite the deteriorating weather conditions. I got back at 21:30, some 16 hours after I’d left. 40 riders had started and I believe that fewer than 20 finished. The course was a really good mix of terrain and countryside and one is like to do again but when I’m fitter and able to hit the hills a bit harder.
Flat terrain and a tailwind. This was as good as it got.
Trying to eat, but I picked a pub that serves the worst bowl of chips in the world, ever. Managed to eat 2.
Sheltering from the rain in an audax hotel., eating fruit pastilles. Although I didn’t realise it at the time , things were starting to look up.
At the arivee. By this time I could drink a beer.