Challenge Henley Competition- The Results!

Well after an intense 2 weeks of spamming everyone with links of why and how they should vote for me, the Challenge Henley Competition finally finished yesterday... and all the hard work paid off. I won! By the end of the competition, friends, family and I had managed to rack up an awesome 575 votes, winning me my free place in the Challenge Henley Triathlon. NICE!

I would like the throw a massive thanks out there to everyone that voted for me. Obviously I can't thank you all individually that would take me all year, but there were a lot of people that stood out and put a lot of effort in to get me those extra votes that sealed the deal. They were:

• Luigi Baccerini- a cycling buddy that hassled all his workmates into voting for me as well as bribing his daughter to get her friends to vote too!
• Poppy Dinsey- for putting a plee out there her extremely popular What I Wore Today blog. Chutney is on it's way!
• All my family- for putting up with me hassling them to get their friends to vote
• James Shooter- For somehow busting out 40 votes in one morning
• Everyone who posted the link on their facebook status'- especially my mates from back home including Anna, Dani, Hailey, Cal, Laura and all the Perfects!
• Dr Stewart Laing for getting all this students to vote
• Heather for earning enough votes to be able to go out on a curry with me lol
• And anyone else I've missed out... There were a lot of you!

So what have I let myself in for? On the 18th September 2011 I'll be doing Challenge Henley, which is a full distance triathlon like an Ironman, just organised by a different company. It consists of the following:

     1. 3.8k Swim (In the Thames)

     2. 180k on the Bike

     3.  42k Run (a marathon- 4 laps of this course)

Yeah it's pretty dam big, and it's gonna be tough. However I've managed to talk my mate Andrew Hailey into doing the race with me, so it will be an interesting summer of training for the both of us when I'm back from Uni... It'll be a few months of solid eating, swimming, cycling, running and sleeping. Boosh.

So once again thanks to everyone that voted. Hopefully some of you will be able to come and watch, looks like it'll be a great event. And now I don't have to spend hours on facebook trying to get votes, I can get back to some decent training... well until the weather turns Arctic again!

How to vote for me so I can race for free. Please?

OK so as many of you have already seen I'm currently in a competition for Challenge Henley and I need as many votes as possible to win a free place at the race. I'm currently lying second which is cool but third place is pretty darn close... and I don't want to come third.

Here is the dummies guide of how to vote, it takes like 1 minute so if you haven't done it already please get clicking, every vote counts at the moment- it's tight!

Step 1: Go to the Challenge UK Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Challenge-UK/145733332122037

Step 2: Click the 'Like Button' for Challenge UK

Step 3: Scroll down the Challenge UK page to find my story (Entrant 4: Ben Butler) and hit the like button for that

Job done. Easy eh? If you've voted already then thanks a million, and a big up to all those that have posted the link on their facebook page and twitter etc. to squeeze a few extra votes out. It's getting close now! If I spend as much time training as I am trying to get people to vote for me this race will be a doddle haha!

Free entry for Challenge Henley? Yes please.

Right, so basically at the start of the month I entered a competition for a free place at Challenge Henley. To enter, I had to write (in 200 words) why they should chose me to get one of a two available free places. So I did.... And I got through to the next round. NICE!

Out of more than 100 people that entered, I and four others got chosen to be in the final five, and of this five two people will win the free places. Each of the final five's 200 word letters have been posted on the Challenge UK facebook page, and on the 14th December the two with the most 'likes' get the free places for Challenge Henley on the 18th September next year.

So whats the deal? Challenge Henley is an Ironman Distance Triathlon, which involves a 2 mile swim, a 112mile bike, and a marathon to finish! There's a reason why it's called Challenge... it's solid. Anyway these events are usually £300 to enter so if I got a free entry it would be pretty cool and also a massive test. Below is a video of the German Version of Challenge Henley, it's pretty cool.



To vote for me all you have to do is go to the Challenge UK facebook page here and 'like' that and then find my bit (Entrant 4: Ben Butler) and like that as well. If you can't find my blurby bit you can also find it here. Overall it should take less than a minute, unless you get lost somewhere.

Many thanks everyone, should be an interesting couple of weeks! Time to spam everyone.

Race Report: BUCS Duathlon 21st November 2010

Last Sunday was the date of the British University Duathlon Championship in Chippenham, consisting of a 2 mile run followed by a 10mile bike leg, and finishing in another 2 mile run. Funky fresh. It was rise and shine at 6am to get ready to start the 4hour drive down South. Thankfully I was hitching a ride with a couple of other students from Bangor Uni, so I got a chance to have a little doze and catch up with some sleep.

After a nice detour around Birmingham we arrived at the race circuit (Castle Combe) where it was pretty dam cold and miserable. The track was the flattest thing I'd seen in quite a while due to living next to Snowdonia, so I was excited to ride and run without having bust up any hills. After registering we went and got ready, which seemed to take forever and had a bit of a rush to get all sorted, nevertheless it was soon time to start the race.

At the start line myself and friend Andrew Hailey, also racing, noticed just how many people were wearing team GBR tri-suits... a tad intimidating but it just showed how strong the line up was. The race got under way and was pretty hectic at the start with about 200 students jostling for position, here's a video of how it went down (notice a lot of people just wearing tri-suits, they must have frozen their asses off):



I set off at a pretty quick pace for myself, having not really done any running races I didn't know what I was doing to be honest. I finished the 2 mile run in 11:14 and entered T1 to get on my bike. The bike leg was fast and flat, I felt pretty good and overtook a fair few people especially towards the end. I clocked a time of 24mins 21 for the 10 miles which is a PB but I was secretly hoping for a faster time as it was such a flat course... I'll blame it on the wind... and it being cold... and having just run 2 miles. Here's the data from the GPS watch for the first run and the bike leg.


(The first run went well, averaging about 5:45min/mile which was cool)



(The bike leg, slightly disappointing time but I definitely pushed it to the limit. O and I forgot to start my watch for the first mile and a half so the GPS data above only say 8.5miles)

T2 went smoothly and it was back onto another 2 mile run. My legs felt wrecked, and I felt slow. I gradually got into an alright rhythm but it felt a lot slower than my first run, which is fair enough as I'd just cycled 10 miles but I'm sure a bit more brick training would help for sure. I finished the second run in a time of 12:27 which wasn't too bad. I was hoping to average 12minutes for each run and I got that so at least I achieved one of my goals.


(My second run, felt pretty grim but overall I'm pretty happy with my time. O and I forgot to stop my watch which is why it says I took 14mins 29 seconds)

My overall time was 49:54, Which I was happy with considering it's my first ever duathlon. The winning time was 43:31 by a world class duathlete, so if I improve by 5 and a half minutes by next year I'll be well up there chilling with him... but that's ain't gonna happen! I finished 57th overall out of about 260, which doesn't sound great but considering how many top athletes there were I'm quite content with that. I came 59th for the first run, 50th on the bike and way down in 91st for the second run. I'll be back next year fitter and faster... maybe going under 47minutes, we'll see.

After a massive burger with all the trimmings in Wetherspoons it was time to head home. I was extremely grateful that Jill was driving, firstly cos I was nackered, and secondly I had eaten way too much and was in a slight food coma. So all in all a great day and a good learning curve, I look forward to next years race already. Unfortunately I haven't got any photos yet- there was a photographer at the race but I ain't paying £5 for a digital photo, nu-uh. So the video and GPS stuff will have to suffice for now.

Tested: Dirtwork Bike Spray sample

Dirt Work UK are on a quest to produce the perfect bike cleaner, forget that weak watery rubbish most current bike cleaners are. These guys are developing a premium product that actually does the job properly At the moment they're doing a lot of testing, and my Kona Jake the Snake was lucky enough to get to try it out.

The sample arrived yesterday and my cross bike had a nice crusty layer of mud welded to it from Sundays race in Amlwch so was in desperate need of a bath. As it happened the sun decided to show its face today so I decided to give the stuff a go. I got a nice sized bottle of the green spray so applied liberally across all of the bike. The first thing that hit me was the smell... quite pungent and chemically, proving that it's pretty concentrated stuff as I don't think it's a parfum smell. Perhaps something to mask it a tad might be nice... apple and cinnamon for the Christmas season? Anyway here are a few pics of what my bike looked like before, nice and dry, welded on mud:

Before: Pretty grubby, and very crusty (click for larger image)

So after giving it a good spray I left it for a couple of minutes to do it's thing. Nothing particularly interesting happened within these two minutes, no frothing, no noise, no melting etc etc. Once that was over I gave it a rinse with my hose, which I have to add is pretty feeble when it come to power. The mud seemed to come off real easy so the spray had definitely done it's job, if I'd sprayed it without adding any chemicals not much would have happened for sure. I then took a few more pictures from phase 2 of the process:

Not much mud left at all, just slightly brown marks where it had been (click for larger image)

Phase 3 involved giving the bike a wipe with a damp cloth to get rid of the brown marks that the hose hadn't quite washed off. This is where my bike started looking super orange. All the brown marks wiped off with ease and even black scuffs that I hadn't been able to get off before had faded. Nice! So once again I took a few MORE photos of what my bike looked like to finish...

Almost like new, just some mud on my tyres and a greasy chain to work on (click for larger image)

All in all this stuff has done the job big time. The bike looks super shiny and super orange. Comparing it to other sprays like it that I've used this stuff is significantly better, you can tell it's a lot better quality chemical wise and I can see it doing well in the MTB and Cyclocross worlds, or any other sport involving mud and machinery. I would have liked to give it a go on my carbon fibre road bike, but apparently they don't know if it's safe to use on carbon yet... and I don't want to be the one to find out! So I'll just have to stick with one bike looking funky fresh for the moment. Best of luck to Dirt Work with the rest of testing, I hope it all goes well and thanks for letting me try it out.

North Wales Cyclocross League- Round 3: Amlwch

Yesterday was round 3 of the local cyclocross series in Amwlch, which happened to be the venue of my first ever cyclocross race this time last year, where I pulled out with a puncture half way round. I drove to Amlwch Lesiure Centre where I, and a few other cyclists, thought the registration was. However after hanging around for a good half an hour without any sign of registration, we decided to drive over to the race field to see if it was there, which was a challenge as I had no idea where I was going. Nevertheless I eventually rock up and had a walk around the course with Sam, the Sports Science student that's gonna help me with my racing this year.

The course looked great, lots of interesting and technical stuff, however it was also renowned for punctures and I could see why; with broken glass, cans and even whole champagne bottles (I guess from teenagers having 'Friday nights down the park', living the dream) littering the wooded section of the course. I then got on my bike and did another couple of laps until it was time to race...

The steep climb of the course- certainly made the legs burn!

The race started on the road with a good sized section of straight road. I got a sweet start and was in 2nd place before we hit the more technical stuff. I managed to hold onto 3rd for the first couple of laps, I was feeling good but then things started to go downhill. The course got more slidy and slippery as the race went on, and I realised that my tyres were pumped up FAR too hard (70psi!!! haha) and my rear tyre just had no grip as I've been riding it around on the road a fair bit. So I was slipping and sliding everywhere, and was generally out of control. I had to run the whole of the wooded section because I just couldn't get the power down and had to take corners at a snails pace. A bit of a bummer really but nevertheless I had a good workout and learnt a lesson... tyres matter!

2nd place Chris Purt slogging up the bank

I ended up 8th overall, and 7th in my age group which was slightly disappointing. As much as it hurt I really enjoyed the race, the course was awesome, I think only one person got a puncture and it was on his last lap, which is cool so everyone had a good time . I currently lye 3rd overall in the series but there's still 7 rounds to go, so it's all to play for.

Me feeling the burn big time!

This time next week it's the BUCS Duathlon, which is the race for all the British University and College students. It involves a 2 mile run, 10 mile road ride, and then another 2 mile run. Should be a good test of my running and cycling, and also a good chance to see where I am relative to other students. So time to sit back and rest my legs for a week. Nice.

Crazy Fools

One of my cycling buddys told me to look at some cycling courier videos on youtube, so I did and they're absolutely mental. You've gotta check them out. Here's a couple of videos from London and New York, if anyone knows of any other good ones let me know. I can't seem to find any for Bangor haha?

Enjoy!

TLI National Cyclocross Championship 2010: Prestatyn

Yesterday I ventured over to sunny Prestatyn for another cyclocross race, this time it was the TLI National Champs. I drove to the race but miscalculated how long it would take, I arrived before 10am so had a bit of a wait before I could register... then it turned out my race wouldn't start until 1, so there was quite a bit of waiting around which wasn't too bad for me, but for my support crew (Heather Dinsey) I'm sure it was pretty boring.

wondering how to get round the first corner in one piece!

The race attracted a medium sized field with some very talented riders, and some keen beans opting for the two bike tactic where you switch between bikes during the race as they get clogged up with grass and mud. Of course this method is pretty expensive and you need a willing helper who will wash your bike for you when it's not in use - so I couldn't really go for that option as much as I'd like to!

www.sportpicturescyrmu.co.uk

After a few laps around the course to find my way around and warm up it was time for the race. The start was quite interesting as the organisers decided to place the sprint about 50m from a narrow, sharp, slippery corner... which I wasn't too happy about. Nevertheless it all got under way pretty smoothly. I started quite conservatively as I didn't want to risk crashing out on the first corner. The first lap was pretty crazy with a lot of overtaking going on and everyone settling into their own rhythm. The course was great. It was really long, fast, technical and interesting. Nice one Mark Baker great job there!

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

The race was pretty uneventful in terms of mechanicals and crashes etc. It definitely seemed like the longest hour of my life, and with good reason as I checked my watch at the end and the race had last nearly an hour and 20 minutes. Painful. But all in all it was an enjoyable race and a solid workout.

It was then off back to the leisure centre where I got changed, ate some monster munch and then went and watched the prize giving. It turned out I got 2nd in my category which was cool as I received my first proper medal, however it unfortunately fell off it's ribbon on the way home. First place in my category went to Mat Prichard from Revolution Bikes (Perhaps he would have won if he'd held back on the shandys' the night before?!) The winner overall was Paul Bethell who was in a whole different league. He led from the first corner and apparently didn't even look tired throughout the race. Impressive stuff.

age group winners (www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk)

Nice one to all the race organisers, great job. And once again great shots from Gwynfor James of Sport Pictures Cymru.

The results have been counted and verified...

So, yesterday I went back to the Sport Science department to get my results from last weeks VO2 max test. In addition to this Dr Stewart Laing asked if I would be interested in doing a Body composition test which sounded interesting so I agreed to do that, although not really knowing what it would involve.

The body composition stuff involved me stripping down to my boxers, had I known I would have brought shorts but instead my Reindeer boxer shorts had to do... I then got skinfolds tested on my bicep, tricep, back, abs, hip, calf and thigh. As well as this the circumference of my guns and my legs was taken. Interestingly my right thigh circumference is 2cm larger than that of my left leg... kind of like a crab I suppose. I need to sort that out apparently it's a significant difference!

Anyway, it turns out that at the moment I am around 12.8% body fat, not too surprising as I haven't been training too much and have just been eating instead! My tubbiest parts were my back and my thighs, and the leanest was my bicep for some reason, which was equal to elite athletes at 3.9% haha. Overall this equates in me having to carry around 9.7kg of the blubbery stuff. Stewart reckons I could shave 2kg's off of this with the right diet and training, which would ultimately make me faster. Nice.

Now onto the results from last weeks testing. My absolute VO2 max came in at 4.85 litres per min. Which means my body can use up 4.85 litres of oxygen every minute. Converting this into relative terms, which divides the 4.85 litres by my body weight on the day, which was around 76.7kg, gives a relative VO2 max of 63ml/kg. Which is good apparently. It's no Lance Armstrong, his was around 85, but elite cyclists tend to have values of 62-74 so I'm within that bracket which is cool. What's even cooler is that if I got my weight down to 74kg, this would put my relative VO2 max up to around 66ml/kg. Funky fresh.

The lactate threshold results showed that I started producing loads of Lactic acid and feeling the burn at a heart rate of around 160bpm. By improving my lactate threshold I'd be able to pump out more power for longer and that would ultimately make me faster... and that's the aim of the game.

My Blood lactate curve, the higher the blood lactate the more it burns!

So now I know all this stuff what can I do with it? Well, I've been designated to two masters students as their project for one of their modules. They will help me improve on my limitations and do some more testing on me in the future, and now I have results to compare to I can see if I've improved. All in all exciting stuff for me... almost worth paying these university fees after all.

North Wales cylocross Series: Round 2- Bethesda Duathlon

Sunday the 24th October saw round 2 of the local cyclocross series head once again to Bethesda leisure centre with yet more great sunny weather, but 10 degrees colder than it was a fortnight ago! The race was run as a duathlon involving 5 laps cycling, 1 lap running, 5 laps cycling and another lap running to finish. Cyclocross duathlons are pretty rare, I wouldn't be surprised if this was Britains only event, but nevertheless I was excited to get going and test my running legs.

Me leading the way from the start. www.sportpicturescyrmu.co.uk 

As is the norm with cyclocross racing, the start involved a sprint to the first corner and as it happened I managed to get there first, which was cool. What wasn't so cool was that I went the wrong way at the corner so about 10 people went passed me, making my efforts pretty useless. Ah well lesson learnt. The first couple of laps were pretty chaotic, with positions changing frequently until everyone settled into their own rhythm. The first 5 laps of cycling was soon over and done with so it was onto the transition, where I had another blunder, somehow managing to fall off my bike on the last corner, so I ended up looking like a plonker and in addition to that my chain came off. Smooth.

Someone taking a tumble behind me on a descent. www.sportpicturescyrmu.co.uk

I hadn't done any running straight off of the bike in a while so I had jelly legs big time. I found it hard to get a good rhythm going and overall felt quite slow. I didn't catch the person in front or get overtaken by anyone so it was pretty uneventful. I found watching cyclists with all their gear still on and running quite amusing, something about it doesn't look quite right, kind of like a hermit crab with out it's shell I suppose haha. Then again I must have looked the same!

I got to the transition from the run to the next bike stage and Barry Davies had kindly put my chain back on so I was straight off for another 5 laps. I got overtaken by one guy a couple of laps in, but then again he was using the concrete cycle path instead of the grass on the long hilly bit of the course, which no-one was meant to be riding on. I wont name any names but they're only cheating themselves haha. I managed to keep Llyn Cycling Clubs John Holt within sight until the run came around when he had about 200m on me.

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

I started the final running lap and felt a lot better than I had for the first run, I got a good rhythm going and had a rabbit to chase, steadily making ground on 5th position in front. with about 200m to go I caught and passed John, and gave it everything I had left to keep it that way. I crossed the finish line in 5th place, and was pretty dam shattered.

Due to two veterans finishing ahead of me it turned out I came 3rd in the seniors category, so I stayed around for the prize presentation and got a voucher for Revolution Bikes which is pretty cool. Might splash out on some energy bars and gels for next weeks TLI National Cyclocross Championship. Can't wait. Big up to Gwynfor James once again for getting some great shots, check out the rest of them here.

Overall it was a good race. Things could have gone a bit smoother but then heinsight is a great thing. I'll be better rested, better fuelled and pumped for next weeks race so we'll see how that goes...

Testing, testing

On the 21st October I became a human Guinea Pig for an hour as I got my VO2 Max, Lactate Threshold and heart rate zones tested at the Sport Science department of Bangor University, as part of a Masters teaching session. Dr Stewart Laing was looking for people to test in order to show his masters students how it's done. This would usually cost over £150 so I was well up for it!

Before:still smiling

A persons VO2 Max is basically the amount of oxygen your body can take in at maximum exertion. It undermines your athletic potential and is thought to be largely genetic. The higher your VO2 max, ultimately the faster you will go. Lactate threshold is the point at which your body starts producing so much lactic acid that you get that nasty burning feeling in your muscles which causes them to stop working properly and slow you down. Lactate threshold is measured in terms of heart rate usually, so I if a persons Lactate threshold was at 90% of their max heart rate, they will be faster than someone with the same VO2 max but a lactate threshold of only 80% max heart rate. Overall these two factors affect how fit and how fast you are/could be.

 During: left; starting to feel the burn right; getting blood lactate tested

The testing was done on a static bike. I had a wear a mask which was hooked up to a machine that examined the amount, and composition of the air I was breathing in and out. The way the test worked was I started on a fixed resistance of 135watts, warmed up on that for 5 minutes and then from then on the resistance increased by 35watts every 3 minutes. As well as this, at each 3 minute interval I had to have blood samples taken from my finger tips with these little pin gun things. They don't hurt but by the end my hands were pretty bloody!

Left: Reaching the end, legs feeling like lead.  Right: Game over, looking wrecked, feeling wrecked.

The test continued getting harder until I couldn't keep going any longer, so as you can imagine it was pretty damn hard, but the efforts should be rewarded with some useful data that can help with my training. I get my results sometime next week, I'll probably post them on here unless it turns out I have the power and fitness of a guinea pig, if that's the case I'll take up twitching, or trainspotting, or tweeting?

and so it begins...

After a few weeks of taking it easy, my training for next season kicked off properly today. So I Went for a nice steady spin with a few local guys. We were lucky with the weather, nice but nippy with no rain. It's currently bucketing it down outside, and my housemate has just come in from a ride absoultely soaked. Feeling pretty smug and dry right now haha! This is the route we took today recorded by Gareths Garmin... it's a good one!

A Breakfast Sensation

Apple season is upon us and I have recently harvested A LOT of the green and red beauties from my garden. So basically my household has a lot of apples, and due to this I have found my new favourite breakfast, and in my opinion it's a taste sensation!

The breakfast consists of.... oats, chopped dried apricots, raisins, home-made apple sauce, milk, and a scoop of whey protein. Until a few weeks ago I thought you had to cook oats before eating them for some reason, but it turns out you don't, so I just whack everything together and munch away. Funky fresh.

So go ahead and give it a go. It's nutritious and delicious!

Every second counts

Cyclocross is a pretty technical sport. It involves a lot of dismounting and remounting along with tricky corners, hills and descents... So when I was contacted by cyclocross legend Barry Davies to see if I wanted any advice I seized the opportunity.

Today Barry and I headed over to the university fields and he showed me some tips that should help me gain some time in the 'cross races in the coming months. The way he put it was: 'If  you had to get on and off around 3 times per lap, and there are 12 laps that would be 36 dismounts/remounts. Now if you can complete each of these 5 seconds faster you would gain 3 minutes in time which is often equal to around half a lap'. So by improving my technique alone I could possibly finish a few places further up than I have in the past. Nice.

Barry also leant me a cyclocross book which I'm going to plough through to get any little tips that could save me time. Perhaps one day I'll be as smooth as the guys in this video (minus the crashes):



A big thanks to Barry for today and I look forward to the next race on Sunday!

North Wales Cyclocross League- Round 1: Bethesda

This morning was the first round of the North Wales Cyclocross League and what a beauty of a morning it was. Clear skies, light winds and most importantly, warm. The league consists of 10 races going down over the next few months. The way it works is at each race you pick up points depending on where you place and at the end of the series your best 8 races count towards your final score! Cool.

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

The same kind of thing was run last year and I took part in a few, usually racing against 20-30 riders, however today there were around 50 which was great to see! Looks like cyclocross is taking off. So, after everyone had a few practise laps to work out where we had to go we all lined up at the start and were ready to roll...

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

Once the raced kicked off, we had to do a few laps around a flat field to string everyone out before we moved onto the real stuff. The course was great, pretty challenging, technical and it hurt, a lot. I can't really remember much of the race it was all a bit of a blur but I do know it hurt and that I finished 8th overall which I'm happy with. There were some seriously strong riders out there and the winner, Mat Prichard seemed to be going well as he lapped towards the end of the race! Nice one man.

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

Another thing pointed out by the race was that my bike is still creaking, it started sometime last week and seems to be coming from the right crank. I paid £20 to have everything around there taken out, greased and tightened up the other day... but the creaking continues, and it's the kind of noise that could drive any grown man mad. Mat from the bike shop joked that it might be too much power?  Haha I don't think so, but it's definitely annoying me. I'll be taking it back down to Revolution Bikes to see what the deal is.

www.sportpicturescymru.co.uk

Nice one Barry Davies and Revolution Bikes for putting together a great race, and also thanks to Gwynfor James of Sports Pictures Cymru for taking some great shots. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Is this what being old feels like?

This week I started doing weight sessions for the first time since February. I've been taking it relatively easy doing light weights with high reps but still, I woke up today and have completely seized up! Better get the WD40 out.

Time for a hot bath... Wheres the Stannah Stair lift?

Could ya handle it?

This video should either put you off the 3 Peaks for life or if you're slightly odd and think, 'Wow that looks like a fun day out I might pack some chicken sandwiches and give it a go', I'll see you there next year. O and if anyone can work out how Rob Jebb is running up Simon Fell at around the 20 second mark of the video please let me know... after watching it a few times I put it down black magic.

The first of many?

And as my racing season came to an end with the 3 Peaks Cyclocross race, billed as the toughest of its kind in the world, I picked up my first age category win and my first ever trophy!!! WOOP!

The race started in Helwith Bridge, Yorkshire, and involved the leg shattering ascent and arm busting descent of the 3 biggest fells in the area; Ingleborough (723m), Whernside (736m) and Pen y Ghent (694m). The race is 'only' 38 miles long which may not sound like much but it was the longest 4hours and 15minutes of my life and by far the hardest race I have ever done.

Rob Jebb was the overall winner in a time of just under 3 hours. He, along with all the top senior riders make the climbs look easy and the descents seem a walk in the park. Perhaps one day I will be able to bomb it down a loose rocky track on 35mm tyrea like they do... might just have to remove my brain first.

As I was 3 Peaks Virgin I had no idea what to expect. I started amongst the middle of the 550 starters and got held up quite a bit on the road towards the first climb, Simon Fell/Ingleborough, pictured below. This grass covered wall was the hardest part of the race and seemed to go on forever, then once it was over the descent was as terrifying as the hill was tough!

After getting passed by many people on the descent I hit the road towards the next climb and made up quite a few places. Once on the track towards Whernside I looked up and was taken aback by the vast lump of limestone in front of you with riders looking like ants as they clamber their way up. The top of Whernside is a rather alien environment with loose boulders and not much going on in the form of life, other than dozens of cyclist gasping for air. The descent of the hill involved a lot of steps and some 'HOLY MACKEREL' moments but I made it down in one piece, thankfully, and was then back onto the road towards the final climb of the day, Pen y Ghent.

I must admit I had imagined Pen y Ghent to be mostly rideable as people had been saying it was a 'riders climb'. However I soon found this was the not case for me as I hauled my bike up a steep, loose rocky track for what seemed like hours with my legs cramping up and energy levels dwindling. Nevertheless I made it to the top where from then on in it was all downhill. I got down Pen y Ghent in decent time and bombed it to the finish on the last couple of miles of road. Then crossed the finish line in a haze after 4hr 15mins and 44secs and was absolutely pooped. I went and got changed and had some food and then lugged myself outside to lye on the grass and wait for the prize giving to see where I had come in my category.

So after watching the Senior Male and Female winners claim their prizes the U23 male category came up. And the winner was... Me! Couldn't quite believe it but I walked through the crowd and collected my £200 voucher for High Peak Cycles and as I was walking away was called back as I hadn't got my trophy! Out came a rather large silver challis and in a way I was more pleased with that than the voucher, having my name engraved on the same trophy as 8 time 3 Peaks Champion Rob Jebb along with the likes of Nick Craig is a real honour. Now all I have to do is find a place to put it!

So my race season is over. Nice to finish on a high and to know all the hard work is paying off. Now time to relax for a couple of weeks, Veg out on Maccy D's and Dominoes, and work out what to spend my voucher on!

Going like a well oiled machine

Today I went on a short ride on my cross bike to test the new tyres and check everything is running smoothly including myself. I basically rode up a big hill on the road and then went down it on a track to try and improve my descending skills in the wet and give the bike a good shake around! Everything seems to be running smoothly. Got absolutely soaked doing so and my legs got covered in stuff... autumn is on its way!

Today was also the first day of serendipity up at the uni. I went and checked it out, got some vouchers for free pizza and checked out the clubs available. Unfortunately there is still no road cycling club, although this year someone has finally organised a triathlon club so I'm definitely gonna hit that hard. Wasn't too tempted by the battle reenactment society or Warhammer club. Maybe next year!

Trouble cramming in the calories?

Just one final bit of 'food for thought' for today.
There may be people out there training so hard they find it hard to take in enough calories? Well here is the answer...http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/food-drink/the-world%E2%80%99s-most-unhealthy-sandwiches-blog-1-sabrina-ghayour.html

Clean chain clean mind

So as I've got a big race coming up this weekend in the form of the 3 peaks cyclocross race, supposedly the toughest race of its kind in the world, I'm not doing too much as far as training goes. Today just involved a 1 and a half hour tempo ride around the lanes on Anglesey which was rather nice!

This afternoon I got down and dirty and gave my Jake the Snake cyclocross bike a good clean and service along with some new tyres. After much deliberation and searching on the internet I decided to go for the Maxxis Mud Wrestler, partly because it was on offer and partly because it said it was a good all round tyre... can't go wrong really.

So now my bike looks rather swish and I'm happy with the new tyres, I'll give them a little run tomorrow to see how they roll! Here are a couple of pictures of ma Jake the Snake. You made need sunglasses he's rather bright!

Text book training

I'm a rather poor student at the moment so in order to try and make some money I gathered my chemistry text books together to see if I could sell them at a local book shop. So I whacked them all in my bag and chugged along the hilly 1.5 mile walk to the book shop only to get rejected with a 'come back next week'.

So I still have 3 text books I don't need, still have no money and now have a sweaty back from lugging them around for 40 minutes.

Nevertheless a nice little training session for the three peaks race next weekend where I'll be carrying my bike for quite a bit of it so every little helps!

Food Coma Mondays

I do not enjoy Mondays. Not because I have to get up early to go to work after enjoying my weekend off, but because Mondays are my day off from training. This means I have to find ways of keeping myself busy which usually involves eating ALL day, and ending up in a food coma...

So how fast can a student go?

Hello! So after a 5 year break I've started a new blog... this time with a purpose, to document how fast I can get on a bike, in the pool and running over the next two years at University.

So why now? Well to be honest I have too much free time on my hands with just 6 hours of lectures a week and not much reading going on... So rather than sit on my bum all day browsing Facebook I'm going to get out there and train hard and see just how fast my body can propel me.

After my first season of cycling time trials and a triathlon I've now got a base to improve on. So here goes!