A Game Of Two Halves

Rode the Hellfire Sportive in Kent on Sunday in what proved to be tricky conditions. Although the sun shone on the day, it had been wet and windy in the days preceding, meaning that the roads were wet, muddy and full of sharp objects which seemed determined to find their way into everyone's inner tubes.

The route was supposedly 140km long, and opened with a nervy descent down a narrow, wet lane in a large group. Once off the descent the pace picked up nicely, and riding with Jon was good fun as we chatted and hurtled through the Kent countryside.

The climbs, though short, did show up Jon's superior climbing ability as we found that his HR was a comfortable 165bpm when ascending, whereas I was approaching my max HR. This difference became really apparent at the top of each climb, as I maintained my climbing pace as the road levelled out while I recovered, while Jon immediately clicked up a couple of gears and went away from me.

At about the halfway point, I really began to feel the effort of pulling along at such a speed. I was effectively in TT mode on the flats just to keep Jon's wheel. So I told Jon to go off at his own speed. So he did. Like he was chasing down a breakaway. Within a minute he was out of sight, and I went backwards.

The rate at which my speed dropped off was alarming, and I felt weak and the legs stiffened up (I really need to address my on-bike nutrition habits). The rest of the ride became a slog, as I battled my own body and an unrelenting headwind all the way home.

The feedstop at 90km and the Garmin clicking over the magic 100km did rejuvenate me somewhat, but I was still toiling. In my defence, I hadn't been feeling great that day with some kind of stomach complaint, and I later found that my rear brake had been rubbing on the rim, but the reality was that having done no long rides at race-pace since the Etape, I was woefully short of fitness.

I knew that the course finished with a 3km ascent up the same hill we'd gone down at the start, so I resolved to take it easy up what I thought was the penultimate climb with 10km to go and empty the tank on the final push. I was therefore bl**dy suprised to find the finish line at the top of that climb - the course was 9km shorter than I had been led to believe. This did mean that I had enough energy for an out-of-the-saddle sprint (of sorts) through the Kent showground to the finishing arch.

Stats for the ride were:

Distance: 131km
Time: 5hrs 58mins
Average Speed: 22km/h (23km/h moving time)
Total Climbing: 1,500m

So way off the gold medal time, and silver was still a speck in the distance. Instead, a feeble surrender and a bronze medal (everyone wins a prize!). The only redeeming fact is that I managed to ward off the puncture fairy, which was quite a feat as there was more than one story in the finishing area of people with 4-5 punctures.

Still, lots and lots of work to do