AKA Getting Beaten By A 53 Year Old.

AKA Getting Beaten By A Guy Who Rides For A Club Called Taipei Slow Cyclists.

AKA ‘He Beat Me? I Quit, I’m Gonna Take Up Badminton…’.

I could go on…

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60k solo, 2/3rd headwind, quite possibly the most painful thing I have done – and mentally exhausting too!

(BTW this event isn’t technically a race but at the front, it’s ridden as a race – and if you are right at the pointy end, the body knows it is deffo a race…).

The event is 130km with most of the climbing at the start, but at the end, in the last 17km, a series of short rollers are usually where the action happens – not this time.

I almost packed it in near the top of the first climb, that’s how much I was suffering to hang on. These kids are really very strong but they go off like fireworks, exploding all over the shop and wasting energy. Thing is, they weren’t just hurting me, they were also hurting their teammates and themselves.

Second hill, same deal, I was off the back of the lead group and thinking that I really should be at the beach with a pina colada listening to Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits, resplendent in my fluoro yellow Speedos, but somehow overrode common sense and latched back on the downhill.

Then we hit the coast – respite, right? Wrong. Same guys, strong enough still, yet obviously yet to grasp that cycling is about efficiency, rather than stretching your p%nis out at the front of the pack doing 46km/hr into a headwind for which you’re sure to pay for later. Once Guy A is done, Guy B takes over but has to – must be in the contract – increase it to 49 for a kilo, stringing everyone out, til he fades and etc etc, on and on.

I really wasn’t having fun.

Then at the 70km point the whole group slowed and stopped to get water, some 30 guys. I wasn’t hungry, had water, so I just rolled through, with another guy, and we kind of soft pedalled for about 7km, then he dropped, so I slowed a little and waited but he disappeared.

OK, I thought, I’ll just go at 90% and get a little further up the road and then tag onto whoever catches me, because that is inevitable. I mean, no point even considering going alone from here on in, in this heat, not really in great shape, 9kg over race weight… yet with 50km to go, I looked back down a 3km stretch and saw no one. I thought, ok, at this speed in this heat, these little rises, that’s over 5 mins… but I still thought there was no chance to hold on – this 50km of road is notoriously windy (it’s all coast), it’s hot, and the rolling hills here hurt after all the hard work put in earlier.

I know this, because I live in an apartment block 10km before the finish line, and I’ve done this event 3 times before – 2 wins both launched on the same hill with 12km to go. In my head, I’d been expecting to be in a lead group with 12 to go and maybe, just maybe, I could get a top 5 from an attack at the usual spot…

I started to put more effort in from here on though, getting up around 40km/hr in to the headwinds and near 50 when it switched to a tailwind – just to see what would happen.

20km to go and still I can’t see a soul behind me. Here the hills began, yet whereas usually I use the big ring on them, today it was small ring, and instead of 22km/hr I was sat at 16, suffering. I started thinking though, with what rationale I had left – go easy on the hills, they will go maybe 5-6 km/hr quicker than me here for 800m or a K – but on the flats, if i can do 40, in this wind, on the next 3k stretch, and the 2km stretch after that and they are on 42… it might just balance out on my favour.

Mentally I was all over the place, that roller coaster of ‘not gonna do it no goddamit i can do it ooh not gonna do it!’playing over and over in my head – and my water supply was down to a thimble full – btw 140km on 2 bottles in 30 degrees+ heat is not recommended.

7km to go and I went past my apartment building, fighting the urge to turn in.

4km to go and I started to believe.

And I started smiling. I’ve been on this gratefulness trip of late – actually, I’ve always been grateful but possibly I’d lost it for a year or three there, and now it’s back, and I’m glad it is – and told myself what I tell my coaching clients – ‘This is your fault. You actually wanted to do this. Another thing, you should be grateful that you can do this, because most can’t and some of those that can’t would give almost anything to be able to do what you are doing, to have this chance…’

OK that’s the long version, but you get me.

1km to go though and a guy I know who was not even in the event passed me, urging grab my wheel!, and I turned then to see two guys chasing hard who were in the race, about 150m behind me, and I don’t know where I got the energy but somehow, I manage to stand up and push, my hamstrings triceps and even my goddam thumbs all cramping in unison, and rolled over the line first.

And I did not grab his wheel, because that would not be right, right?

He told me soon after I’d just about controlled the gasping for air that he’d actually led them for quite a distance, trying to drag them up to me, that it had been arranged beforehand that he’d meet them en route specifically to pull them to the win.

And they failed.

😉

Take that, whippersnappers!

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This was done on almost no ‘real’ training, just a whole bunch of Z2 and doing three long, hard tours this year with my tour guests through my company, KOJO Collective – most recently 7 beastly (and beautiful!) days in Kyrgyzstan. I did some specific tapering in the last 2 weeks though, short sharp VO2 efforts on short climbs (specifically the climbs on the route), and a few 8km full gas TT efforts – to replicate the way the finish had gone in previous years – but within weeks of less than 180km over the 7 days, to ensure I was rested well – and this goes to show how much you can get done with limited time to train.

You have to race smart too. I did nothing in the first 70km, apart from suffer and make sure my chest never felt the wind unless absolutely necessary. After years of racing I have learnt one thing is paramount over all others: cycling is about efficiency, first and foremost If we have the same power, same weight, same determination, but I ride smarter, if i save 1 watt over you, I’m going to win.

So you do nothing, until it’s time to go.

A whole bunch of messed up Cyclist Ego helps too…

Because if you don’t have that, how else do you put yourself through that hurt…?

Answers on a postcard please.