100 Miles of Nowhere: Dodgy Knees Holding a Guernsey Passport Division
100 Miles of Nowwhere. I’ve been looking forward to this since late March. Sometimes winning is everything and this time I’d given myself every chance within my category (the dodgy knees holding a Guernsey Passport division). Reasonably rested, carbo loaded and ready to go I slept soundly the night before the off knowing I’d be difficult to beat. As long as I beat 5 hours I’d be the winner.
After all, these 100 miles were to be raced over my (literally) home turf. No one could possibly beat me. Could they?
Whats more, I had a special bike too.
A Cervelo S1 aero frame (borrowed for a week from my LBS) with deep section Mavic wheels. An absolute must for any turbo based endurance event. Try it. You will never look back.
Pre race supplies
A Shaky Start
Amazingly, and rather embarrassingly due to late decision on behalf of my bowels who with only a few mins to go before the off decided to demand a movement, I missed my start time at the gate by 6 mins.
Mortified and with jeers and cat calls from the crowd (Mrs T) ringing in my ears I finally set off at 11.06 am. Given my lack of common time keeping I decided upon a simple strategy.
To keep pedalling for the next 5 hours.
Simple and yet immensely effective. Turn those circles so to speak & never, ever, turn in squares..
The Race Proper
So thats how it went. Minute by minute and hour by hour the drill remained simple.
Pedal. Drink every 10 mins and eat every half hour.
For 5 hours.
Simple.
Actually thats not quite the full extent of the truth. It wasn’t that simple at all. These 5 hours were rather long. In fact, they were very, very long…… A man can watch only soooo much Snooker on TV before feeling quite vengeful to almost anyone.
The End
And so it came to pass. With 160kms on the clock and nearly “home” I noticed my pace was slightly off the target. It dawned on me I’d probably fail. That I wouldn’t break the 5 hour mark.
As you can imagine with 160kms in the legs it took some effort to summon the strength needed for a sprint but sprint I did.
But to no avail. I finished in 5 hours and 5 secs.
I had failed. I had lost and in my mind I’d lost big…….
Next year…. I’ll do it next year……
The mess afterwards. Drink bottle, food wrappers and sweat towels everywhere.
The proof. 5 Secs from victory
– Stuart T.
Comment by Laura | 05.11.2010 | 1:24 pm
But Stu: 100 miles = 161 km. You made it easily…
Comment by Betsy | 05.11.2010 | 1:52 pm
Love all the trash on the floor! Good job.
Comment by Stu T | 05.11.2010 | 2:24 pm
Well my goodness – I’m not too sure of the etiquette on commenting on posts relating to oneself but hey…… here goes
I feel truly humbled to have had my little story for this year’s 100 M.O.N picked out by Elden and printed here on the blog. Thanks kindly.
While it my not come across too strongly in the text I did honestly enjoy doing it.
On a different note I’m feeling both happy and slightly embarrassed by my lack of an accurate translation from Kms into miles.
As Laura says above, it seems I came in under the 5 hours anyways……
Happy days. All the best everyone.
Stu T