2015 A faltering start

Its been a while since I posted on here, as much as anything probably a symptom of several factors in my cycling and non cycling worlds. In January, I changed roles in the day job and found myself working long hours in a pressure cooker environment. Despite being the worlds easiest going bloke, I found myself distracted, tired, stressed and generally struggling to balance work and home. Thankfully the worst is behind me now and normal service is slowly being resumed. As I write this in mid July, my balance is returning and the structure around my training is becoming more ordered. This summer has seen me restore some of the discipline around my training and nutrition and my head is in a generally good place.

I have very much realigned my priorities and have started racing regularly.....but less regularly if that makes sense. I no longer feel the need to race every single weekend just in case I miss a good day or the opportunity of a win because someone a little better than me has an off day. I enjoy the sense of occasion that racing twice a month brings over the relentless monotony racing twice a week for eight months brings.

Taking a step back from mid week league events has been a wise move for me. Maybe the lack of a race on Wednesday evening might blunt my form by a tiny percentage but going to every race razor keen and fresh seems to make up for this.

With my more relaxed outlook on racing, I've taken the opportunity to adopt using non round chainrings on my bikes.....For those who say they cannot tell the difference, I sit and smile - as they must have no feeling or nerve endings. Learning to pedal smoothly on these rings has brought benefits but my goodness I've had to work on my pedalling to get the smoothness I had. Utterly worth the effort.

I don't revere fast courses these days. They're not really safe and no one can convince me otherwise. But this being said, they fulfil a purpose for me. A decent qualifying time always ensures that I can get into an event, so with this in mind I travelled to Derbyshire last week to ride a one off 25mile TT on the Etwall course. To my surprise I came away with a lifetime best of 50mins 41sec.....which in all honesty I was really satisfied with, especially as most of the other competitors at the sharp end felt they were about a minute and a half slower than the week's previous event on the same course.

As ever, the cycling seasons come and go and with the last half dozen road events now entered, I'm increasingly thinking of the cyclocross season. With regards the CXM team which I founded and now co-manage with Ted, we are going from strength to strength with three supported riders this year getting two carbon framed bikes provided along with a mountain of wheels and tubulars to support them through this winter. I couldn't have every imagined that what started off as a modest idea would now be a really well known team that gets support from probably the best known UK bike manufacturer. In these days of blurred lines between pro and amateur cycling, I feel that our supported riders can justifiably look on themselves as riding at pro level, albeit entry level as their support is tangible, real and doesn't consist of just a nice jersey to ride around in.

2015 sees me make my fifth ride in the worlds toughest cyclocross race, the Three Peaks. This is a race that I dislike with a passion. However, as the rest of the CXM team will be there, it seems only correct that the rider managers Ted and I fly the flag. I am flying out to the Mediterranean for a couple of weeks warm weather training the following day so yes it'll be a steady ride round with no big risks coming down Cold Cotes / Whernside slabs / Pen-y-Gent boulders for me as I don't want to be confined to the pits one handed bike washing at the National Trophy at Southampton in mid October. For the first time, I'm going to do some focussed training for the event, not for one minute to improve performance....but simply to enable me to get round without feeling like it was an ordeal. I'm presently building a specialist (and somewhat quirky/kinky) bike for the event that I'm truly excited to race on.....but the bike and preparation is worthy of a separate  post.

So over and out and hopefully there'll be more to come soon enough.

The time has come.....maybe

2014 has been one of those years......after breaking my leg back in late January, I never hit any sort of form until it was too late, so the summer was really about just remaining fit, enjoying myself and recharging the batteries. It was my late friend, Lenny Grayson who said to me about fifteen years ago that some years he clicked, some years he didn't. Lenny was fiercely competitive, but he'd learnt to be objective, measured and mature about his sport. So the road has been about just remaining in the sport this year.

In a rush of blood to the head, I decided to do the British Best All Rounder competition but with just committing to one race at each of the three distances. My 12hour was on a warm and windy day....somehow I kept it together to cover 267 miles and set a new club record. The 100 took place on a day that was thoroughly unsuitable for high sided lorries and men with combovers......gusts of 50MPH were recorded that morning. By adopting the 'shit or bust' pacing strategy, I managed to just break the four hour barrier. Being desperate for a fast 50, I threw caution to the wind and against better judgement rode a 50 in heavy showers to come back with a 1:47:06, another club record. All three races left me absolutely smashed to smithereens......the weather didn't help but a top fifteen place in a season long national competition isn't too bad.  

Other highlights were high speed sportives around the route of the Tour de France Yorkshire stages and a stonking 382w ten on a slow, single carriageway course.

So as I write this, I've got one cross bike ready to go and another in bits with just five days to my first CX race of the year. On a positive note, the Team is absolutely fantastic at the moment and I'm incredibly proud to see my idea of 2012 flourish with three supported riders, a fantastic support network and a brilliant working relationship between Ted and myself keeping the dream alive. In addition to our magnificent sponsors, we have achieved a network of supporters from across the cycle industry and have some really exciting product and prototype equipment testing lined up.

This winter's cross is going to be a low key....but hopefully enjoyable whilst it lasts. I'm presently suffering from a persistent cycling injury that requires surgery to remove the root case thereof. No more detail is required or will be forthcoming, suffice to say that when the consultant operates, I anticipate that my season will be cut short and I won't be on a bike for a the thick end of a month. Short term pain to secure my longer term competitive cycling future.

The uncertain road to recovery part one.

So nineteen days on from my injury, ten days on from having my leg re broken, realigned , plated and pinned there's a somewhat burning question. One of those questions that I may well regret asking. How exactly do they break someones leg in an operating theatre. I hope the instrument was suitably blunt and sterile....

Anyway, tomorrow is a milestone of sorts. I've managed to not contract MRSA, to not go insane through social isolation and I've even managed to avoid spending three weeks woth of unspent work petrol money on another pair of power cranks (so far). So hows it going? Well ultimately, it isn't,  and I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect any form of comeback or rehabilitation just yet. But notwithstanding I'd not even clapped eyes on a bike until this morning, I'm in as good a place as I can be. My legs have undoubtedly lost some of what wasn't a lot of muscle in the first place. And I've undoubtedly lost some fitness, but I've managed to maintain almost monk like discipline with food. Three hundred calories for breakfast, three hundred for lunch and a main course and light pudding for dinner. Not a single morsel has passed my lips between meals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm now hungry like you wouldn't believe.....but not for food.
I'm hungry to do some disciplined training, to not overtrain, but to do some really specific work to rebuild.  I've hooked up with my sounding board of seventeen years and have some plans of my own and hence I cannot wait to get going. Follow the plan, no more, no less and see what happens. Clearly, it's going to take me some time. So much so that any season long objectives are out the window now. I'm unlikely to recover in time to impact on the BBAR as I'd planned. The national TT series isn't possible. So I need to just aim for piecemeal objectives.

Tomorrow sees the stitches come out and hopefully the agreement as to when I might be allowed to start officially weight bearing on my leg. That will enable me to spend some time on physiotherapy rather than being busy not looking out of the window (because if I look out of the window this morning, I'll have nothing to do this afternoon).

The roller-coaster of pre season 2014.

The National Cyclo-cross Champs was my last cross race of the season. Whilst cross is my first discipline, having the event behind me couldn't come soon enough. I was looking forward to laying some high quality road miles in to build some base fitness ready for the road season.

I set to. Well and truly, I was in the groove. I always put a couple of kilos on through the cross season and was sat at a reasonable eight percent body fat the day after the champs with my power to weight on the turbo 'there or thereabouts' from last year. On track, reasonably rested and good weather conditions available for road training. 

Two weeks in, I'd laid down two back to back weeks nudging ten hours of volume, moreover quality volume. Perhaps the fact that I'm currently helping a couple of local riders with advice around training at the moment was helping me keep rigidly in the zone, as knowing that they would be looking at my training files - they'd be certainly wanting me to practice what I preach. Perfect, feeling physically tested at the end of each session but also like I could have done a little more.

At 9.30am on Tuesday 28th 2014, everything changed. As I ran back into the house from nipping out to my vehicle for a phone charger, I fell. I heard the crack. To cut a long story short, as I sit here writing this, I have an eight inch long set of stitches, a titanium plate and four screws that I didn't have before. I've also had my first experience of an emergency hospital admission, hospital food and morphine.  The low point was undoubtedly being told ten days in that I had to have my leg re-broken to adjust the alignment which had shifted. Back to square one. 

The standard of care I have received under the NHS was second to none, however I am now left to feel like I am subject of a one size fits all recovery schedule. Despite the surgeon telling me that the plated bone is very nearly as strong as if nothing had happened, it would seem that the timelines are set much the same as if I was relying on natural knitting of the bone. It would seem that the fact I weigh less than 75kgs makes no difference to the point where I can load bear. Perhaps the consultant's seen it all before....obsessive endurance athlete's who start load bearing early, resume full training when they'd normally still be in plaster and then end up getting airlifted of Helvelyn half way through a fell run. So it would rather seem I'm stuck with six to seven weeks in plaster. 

My son sent me a text - "You're the master of timing, love Callum x", to which I replied "So when is it a good time to break a leg? Love Dad x". But ultimately I can manage this. The break to my fibula is about 2" up from the ankle and the surgeon's work has not impacted on any muscle mass. Once I get the cast off, I can ride. I've done lots of reading on the subject and in summary, it sounds like the bad news is that I'll suffer some muscle wasting and around a 20-25% decrease in VO2max etc over the eight weeks. The really good news is that the longer and deeper an individual is trained, the faster it all returns back to pre incident levels. The key principle for well trained riders would also seem to be you get it back at the rate you lost it. 

Realistically twelve weeks training then after the cast comes off in early mid March. Nineteen weeks from now, I'll be pinging again. 23rd of June it is then. 

The challenge now is to make sure the day the cast comes off, I slip a pair of S-Works shoes on and gingerly climb onto a turbo (note the rollers will have to wait), I'm in the best physical condition I can be. If I'm going to be initially down on power, then there needs to be a little of me as possible to haul uphill, push through the wind. My BMR is about 1700cals, plus activity factor puts me a 2150cals. Out come the scales, the rice cakes and the cottage cheese. 72kgs is the target. No sugar, desserts, biscuits or cakes. The core is getting an hour of solid training a day along with some modest quad work.

In terms of racing, I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I start in mid April, and race below par? Or do I delay and lay down a solid 100hrs of base before turning a wheel in anger. Mixed emotions and lots to consider. But I've got lots of time to think about it.

One thing's for sure - I'm not retiring yet.

    

2014 Nat Champs Report

And so it came to pass….We arrived with a leisurely three hours to spare, signed on whilst the pit crew set up. What I’d anticipated was confirmed when Tommo (James Thompson) said “it’s a shitfest, you might get away with changing every lap….at a push”. We rode the course. Once. It was.

In such a situation, I’m not entirely sure that there’s anything to be gained by riding lap after lap in practice. If a four metre wide course is like a ploughed field (no exaggeration) from tape to tape over eighty percent of the lap, there’s not a lot to be had in terms of marginal gains. In fact, seeing the marshals pushing a half full water bowser to the pits after half of the first day, I had it pretty clear in my mind that having plenty of water would make more difference than anything.

Back at the van, we discussed a pit strategy. Which is a posh way of saying that the four of us discussed how two bikes could be washed in four minutes and 100litres of water could be made to last twice as long as it actually would. The cyclo-cross equivalent of ‘Feeding the Multitude’…..It was clear we were going to struggle. Being most likely to pit before Ted, if I took bikes every half lap, four things would clearly happen. Firstly the pit crew would struggle to service Ted, then they’d probably miss me coming through the second time… thirdly, we’d run out of water after about twenty minutes…..And then the whole job followed by my rear mech would fall apart. I thought it was better to change once a lap. That was the plan, stick to it and hope for the best.

Gridded up, about five rows back and away we went – a big field of 115. Hell for leather. Into the first right hander all hell broke loose on the flooded inside with bikes and bodies everywhere, before going into the technical stuff. Award of the day went to Brian Johnson who overtook me like a train and piled it right in front of me. Even more remarkably, he managed to remount and got back up with us in what seemed like about twenty seconds.

Now as is the way with my blog, I often talk about ‘settling in’. None of this today. The whole race was just pure attrition, ride, nearly fall off, ride some more, dismount at a near standstill, remount untidily. No rhythm, no consistent lines, horrible. Despite the pit crew doing a magnificent job, each lap my 16lb bike was weighing a good 30lbs as I shouldered it and did myself in attempting to run. Such was its weight, the top tube literally felt like being beaten with an iron bar. And goodness, there was a lot of running.

As we approached the bell, I had gapped a small group of four by mashing it through the 4”deep gloop by the pits when Nick Craig came literally flying past. The first time I’ve been lapped this year, and goodness he was impressive. Whilst no one likes to be lapped, this was perfect timing….I hung on for the last lap knowing that this, the most attritional of race of 2013/14 was virtually over.

As I crossed the line, I didn’t even stop. It was straight to the van, grab a rucksack and then straight to the pits to drop my bike before a bin bag job and cold shower. My 48^th was OK. Frankly I’d struggled with clumsy remounting and commitment. I’d be the first to admit that I ride cross very much on my aerobic capacity rather than technique. But I suppose to finish 48th in an event that had four hundred entrants wasn’t so bad.

Coming away from the event, I certainly felt that I’d had enough and it was very much a case of ‘job done’.

Steve: UK National Champs – Pre race thoughts…

All good things come to an end….thankfully.

So, here we are. My last cross race of the season. The British Championships at Moorlands, Derby. For some, this is the climax of their season, in all honesty, for me at two days to go, feeling like the lowest key race of the year. Why, for a variety of factors…..

Firstly, honestly, it’s a race where I’ll make up the numbers. In a race where the best of the best turn up, and riders are accepted…or not as the case may be, a mid field finish is a reasonable outcome, not a lot to get excited about, especially when I’m not at my best. Hopefully I’ll become locked in a race long battle with Jough to push me like last time I raced there. (Despite the fact he nuked me at the bell!)

Secondly, I’m wrecked. Not physically, but the relentless cycle of training-loadingthevan-drivethereat5am-practice-washbike-race-washthebikesagain-drivehomeat5pm-washbikesproperly-unloadthevan-laundry…..and repeat…. for five months without a break has taken it’s toll. I want to lay in bed on a Sunday morning until eight, get up, eat breakfast in the kitchen out of crockery, not Tupperware at 70MPH on the M42. I want to waft out on the bike, do some quality training and then do some quality soaking in a bath. 

Thirdly, I typically get the best results in the mud….but only up to a point, I’m a gangly clumsy and uncoordinated bag of bones. When it becomes a case of repeatedly transitioning from running to riding, I struggle. Much of the exhilaration of cross is leathering it on the fast bits, scaring myself to death and coping with the Belgian bowling green when it happens. Problem is, that the massively wet month we’ve just had has meant that the last few races have been very sloggy. My experience at Moorlands last time was good, but it’s going to be a real slog. It needs to hammer down all race to make it sloppy, and it isn’t going to.

Enough is enough for the time being. Let’s get it over with.

2014 Nat Trophy - Shrewsbury

No Excuses.

Back in August when I was mulling over committing to a second full National Trophy, thing’s weren’t clear cut. In practice, no matter how carefully one pursues cyclocross, it’s costly in terms of time and cash. My 2012/13 season had been disproportionately intense and left me seeking a more sensible approach. So the prospect of riding the final round whilst suffering from the after effects of a heavy cold had me resigned to wrapping up,  and I’m about to say one of those things that underperformers say all the time….. ‘Just use it for training’.

Questionably, I thought to myself that perhaps riding would be worthwhile if nothing else to improve my experience and fly the www.cxmagazine.com flag.

So to avoid another whole weekend being consumed by a forty min race, it was a 5am start to travel to Shrewsbury. As we joined the A38, a major dual carriageway, the butterfly flapped its wings and the whole day started to be a case study in chaos theory.

As we glided along, silently, suddenly a rapidly unfolding situation became apparent. With cars and vans everywhere, right way up, upside down, it suddenly became apparent that we were doing seventy miles an hour on black ice. We were in the middle of an unfolding pile up. Not good. Perhaps, just perhaps cyclocross saved my life. Brake in straight line, don’t do anything sudden and come of the brakes and go round it…….. The next forty miles were done at a snails pace until we crossed out of Derbyshire and into the land of salted roads. We were running really late now. So late that we couldn’t stop for fuel, just hope for the best. Shit or Bust.

Shrewsbury wasn’t  a good course for me last year. There’s not a single thing wrong with it, It’s just very technical and it doesn’t suit me. There’s a few steeps that I struggle on and with barely time to do a single practice lap, I wasn’t really able to work out the lines or gain the confidence to hit the dodgy bits hard.

Wrapped up, gridded and bang. We were off. My start was OK, no better or worse than usual as we entered the one feature that somewhat sets Shrewsbury apart. A simple starting straight followed by a marginally ridable bank that never fails to cause complete chaos for a seventy strong field. Going into the bank I was forced to dismount and then hit heavily from behind by another rider. It’s funny the things that go through the mind, I can distinctly remember thinking ‘that feels like a Rhino’ as the following guys tread ran up my calf. I came out of the mêlée in roughly 35^th place before the white knuckle ride that is a race paced lap on a technical course I hadn’t properly reconnoitred.  

(Photo - Andy Whitehouse)

For all Shrewsbury challenges, it also rewards. Of all the Trophy courses this one has one of my favourite features. An ultra fast off camber bank section running off a wind assisted tarmac section. Try and ride it with anything less than one hundred percent commitment and it’s a big crash or untidy zero speed dismount. Hit it absolutely full on , accept that for two seconds you’ll be utterly out of control and it rewards with both wheels off the ground over the brow. Scares the living daylight out of me. Makes me grin like a Cheshire Cat…

This course is for some reason the epitome of my friend – Andrew Yee, editor of Cyclocross Magazine’s ethos…..”The best designed courses are ones where riders have to make decisions”. So many decisions to make on this course, which pit to change bikes at, to shoulder or to wheel, to run down the bank or not, to remount left or right, or high line or low line. Brilliant despite my constantly getting it wrong and a one hundred percent consistence of pants rides there.

As the race progressed, I managed to pick a few riders off and worked my way up to about twenty fifth position or so. With really muddy conditions, I had my girlfriend red lining in the pits with changes every lap and a half.

At the bell, I found myself exactly where I didn’t want to be – at the front of a group of four behind, I somehow found a strong last two minutes to drop them and come in 27^th place. Exactly the same position as in 2012…Given my stronger season this year, disappointing. Given my cold, OK.

So what did I gain from riding? Probably not a lot other than a handful of BC points, a bit more experience at a classic venue, another week of coughing and further confirmation that Shrewsbury is the most technical course of the series. But ultimately, slithering around a cross course is thoroughly good fun and as always, my cxmagazine.com team mates were thoroughly good company.

Once I’d suffered the indescribable shame of admitting to the AA man that my van had not only run out of fuel, but had done so whilst I was keeping warm in the car park pre race we were away for a McRecovery meal and less eventful drive home.