Andrew, Race Report

The Dirty Reiver 2017 (Andrew)

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The Dirty Reiver 130 (80 miles) is a gravel race along the access roads that service the vast areas of forest covering the border of Scotland and England.

A gravel race is basically an off-road race and, as such, you don’t want to use a road bike.

The clue’s in the name: Road bike for…. roads. Off-road bike for… going off the road.

It should have been obvious but, oh no, not me, I knew better. Or worse, as it turned out…

The Dirty Reiver started last year and it’s based at Keilder Castle in Northumberland, an an area of the country that I, and it turned out, the mobile network, have never been.

Keilder is home to Europe’s largest man-made lake, though why there’s a lake in the middle of Northumberland is not something that’s mentioned in any of the leaflets I checked at the castle. It’s certainly not there because it’s easy to get to because Keilder is in the middle of a large moor crossed by single track roads then large forests crossed by slow winding b-roads.

It’s beautiful but it’s the kind of beauty that demands patience – and an ability to ignore the tractor blocking the way in front of you.

We drove down on Friday and registered on Friday night, though you can register before the race too. We stayed in the town of Bellingham, which was on 30 minutes from the start, though an early start of 5:40 was needed as the race started at 7am.

Normally, bike races start early to avoid traffic – so I wasn’t sure why a race with no traffic needed to start so early. But, I also thought I could use a road bike, and I wasn’t any better at predicting timings.

“Maybe six hours?” I said to Iain.

Nowhere close.

Race day had ideal weather. Sunny-ish. Not too warm. A very light breeze and, as it had been dry all week, the trail was dusty rather than muddy.

It was cold to start but nothing that an emergency use of the Glasgow Tri Club buff couldn’t fix, after I realised that I’d forgotten to bring gloves.

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Did I tell you how well prepared I was for this race…?

The race started in waves of around 20-25 bikes with a sharp drop from the castle then straight into the forest. The first couple of miles were… okayish. A steady climb. A dirt track then…

Ouch!

The first descent.

Crickey!

Another stone.

Blimey!

And another.

Jings!

And another.

And I’d only gone one metre.

100 metres of a descent later and I feel like Godzilla has kicked me in the baws then grabbed my arms, shaken me about, and punched me in the back.

And only another 78 miles to go.

It was horrendous. Every bump, stone, rock and pepple went straight through my bike and into me. I had to pull on my brakes through any descent just to keep some control.

I was going slower downhill than I was going uphill.

It was HORRIBLE.

And I knew then that my six hour estimate was completely wrong.

The first hour followed a pattern of grinding up a hill, with slate and pebbles sliding away beneath my wheels, to trying to go down hills as slowly as possible so as not to go over my handlebars or become an involuntary eunuch.

I hated every minute of it.

And, to make things worse, Iain was on a mountain bike and making the whole thing look easy as, every hill, he was picked up by Godzilla and given a soothing massage through the magic of suspension and fat tyres.

Not that I didn’t have the right tyres. The organisers had recommended 33 inch tyres as a minimum and that’s what I had. But I needed more than the minimum, I needed big knobbly tyres and shock absorbers. Instead I got BATTERED.

The route itself was spectacular with the scenery changing every 10 miles as you go through forest, moors, farmland, dirt track, walking trails and, thankfully, blessedly, a five mile stretch of smooth, smooth tarmac.

There’s even a river crossing.

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But it was tough and my lack of a ‘granny gear’ meant every hill was a challenge and my lack of springs in my bum meant I’ll never sit down again.

After eight hours we finally got back to Keilder castle. I had to:

  • Stop once to reattach my back wheel after all the shaking shaked it loose from the frame!
  • Stop twice to stop my nose bleeding after all the shaking  shaked it loose from my brain!
  • And stop umpteen times to just stop shaking!

I’m glad I took part. I now know what it’s like to race a gravel race and to race off-road but I don’t think I’ll be signing up for another anytime soon. Not without a mountain bike – and not without a doctor’s note that I can still father children.

Oh, my poor baws!

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Andrew

Open Water Swimming (Andrew)

Home to the Western Isles for Easter and a chance to join the Hebridean Triathlon Club’s open water swim on Saturday morning. I say club but, as it’s only just started, it’s mostly a nice man called Colin who was happy for us to join him on his weekly swim at Coll beach.

He was prepared. He had an orange buoy to help with sighting, emergencies and generally keeping safe in the water. We had wetsuits and serious doubts we’d last more than five minutes in the water.

It was FREEZING!

“Six and half degrees,” said Colin.

And then 30 second later.

“Good news, it’s now seven!”

I couldn’t feel my feet. I’d not worn swim socks as I find them uncomfortable. They’re like two heavy bags strapped to your feet.

Not that I knew if I had feet. I couldn’t feel anything below my knees as I waded in.

“Dip your face in,” said Iain.

I did.

Like The Weeknd, I couldn’t feel my face.

So, that’s what that song is about. It’s not about cocaine at all, it’s about open water swimming.

“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you!”

I tried swimming breaststroke for 10 minutes keeping my head carefully out of the water. Then, once I’d acclimatised, I tried some freestyle. (Or free(zing)style.)

I couldn’t feel my ears.

I was noticing a pattern.

Cold water is, well, cold.

But the sun was out. The swimming was good and it was great to be swimming again in more extreme conditions than a heated pool.

 

Andrew

The loo queue (Andrew)

Going to the toilet is something we tend to do privately. It’s our own we world of wee where we can sit and think and generally take a break from the world for a moment of two.

But not runners and triathletes. Oh no, not us. We have to turn the toilet break into something competitive. It becomes a race and we’re no longer alone, we might not know it, but we’re under scrutiny.

Next time you’re at a race think about what you do at the start. You probably stretch, you probably get changed, you probably realise you forgot some drawing pins to hold up your number and you try and find some at registration – and you go to the toilet.

Sometimes, that’ll be a row of portaloos. At other times, a toilet in the gym or school or, as at the Alloa half marathon, the local Asda.

You’ve got to go before you go and it doesn’t matter where because you don’t want to Radcliffe it in the middle of a race.

(If you don’t want to know what a Radcliffe is then don’t Google Paula Radcliffe and the 2005 London marathon. Eeuugghh!).

But when you go before you go you always find that everyone else has had the same idea. There’s a queue. A long queue – and that’s when it gets competitive.

Frankly, some people take too long. They know there’s a queue, they’ve been in it themselves for the last 10 minutes, yet, when it gets to the bog they don’t just pee and go. They take their time. They relax. They forget that everyone else is waiting – and listening!

Because you can’t help but listen. You want to hear the rustle of short or trousers being pulled up. The bang of a toilet roll being torn. The scraping back of a the lock so that you can then take your turn as….

… you realise everyone is listening to you. They’re desperate. They’ve been waiting for ages, crossed legged, hopping foot to foot and they just want to hear you tinkle, stand up, unlock and leave.

So, you want to be the fastest. You want to be someone who’ll walk out almost as soon as they walked in. You want the imagined high fives (after you’ve washed your hands, of course) as you pass back along the queue as everyone respects the fact you didn’t keep them waiting. You were in an out. A toilet god. The Uisean Bolt of urination.

Going to the toilet is no longer something we do privately. It’s a competition and you want to win!

There should be gold medals, their really should.

Andrew

Female factory packers of the world unite! (Andrew)

Every six months or so I order new energy gels. I have to order them from the internet as I like ZipVit gels and you can’t buy them in any shops, or at least the shops I know, or at least the shops I know within five minutes of the house. The internet has reduced the need to search any further!

Today, my latest supply of banana gel ZipVit’s arrived  – and they came with a message on the front of the box. An unexpected message. It said:

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Now, while I’m all for manufacturers telling you that they took care packing their products, they really shouldn’t need to tell you that. It should be a basic requirement of delivering anything that you didn’t just throw everything into a box higgledy piggledy before mashing it down, throwing it as hard as you could against a brick wall before stamp on it to make sure the lid closed. That’s Royal Mail’s job. The manufacturer should be sending everything packed carefully.

So, it was nice that they’d taken the time to highlight this as an important step. Unnecessary, but nice.

What I do have issue with, what I really don’t believe, it’s that “Sam” had anything to do with it,

Maybe, I’m wrong. Maybe the ZipVit warehouse is filled with good looking women taking an almost unhealthy interest in packing energy gels boxes in brown delivery boxes to fat guys on bikes. Maybe she placed this sticker here with her own fair hand, a fair hand shared with the hundred other beautiful women of the ZipVit shop floor all desperate to provide MAMIL’s with much needed banana tasting energy boosts.

Perhaps Zipvit is at the cutting edge of female empowerment in the warehouse packing industry. Maybe they sponsor deprived woman from inner city communities, train them and teach them and school them in the ways of packing boxes.

Or perhaps Sam is a lone trailblazer in a male dominated industry where to handle a package you need to, well, be able to handle your own package.

Maybe Sam is the Emily Pankhurst of ZipVit box packers? Maybe she’s a feminist icon in waiting? Maybe just maybe Sam is real.

Or maybe, almost certainly, it was packed by Dave from Rotherham.

Dave who farts on the boxes and scratches his bum.

That Dave.

Not Sam.

Dave.

I hate you, Dave!

You lied to me, Sam!

And you didn’t even pack it carefully – one of the corners was squashed!

Iain

End Of Month Report: March (Iain)

My plan for March was:

  • Stirling Duathlon.
  • Alloa Half Marathon.
  • Bike (on average) 100 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 16 miles a week including a half marathon and a 10k.
  • Do yoga at least once a week.
  • Swim twice a week.

What actually happened:

Oh well, I achieved everything but the second swim. I can’t complain about March. The weather was good and I was healthy all month.

This month’s targets:

  • The Dirty Reiver https://www.dirtyreiver.co.uk/ It’s a gravel bike race in Kielder forest. A 60 mile off-road course on gravel tracks. I’m looking forward to it as I’ve never been to this part of the Country before and I’ve heard its a beautiful spot.
  • Bike (on average) 110 miles a week.
  • Run (on average) 16 miles a week including at least one off road hilly run of an hour a week.
  • Do yoga at least once a week.
  • Swim twice a week.

I’m on holiday for two weeks so I’m looking forward to biking and running but also catching up with household chores. I have a hall that needs plastered and painted. That’ll definitely be the hardest challenge of the month. 🙂

Here’s a selection of photos from March. If you want to see more then follow me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imacivertodd/ 

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Stirling Duathlon (Andrew)

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Can you buy speed?

If your name’s Jarvis Cocker and you sing that you’re ‘Sorted For E’s and Whizz’ then… yes…. yes, you can.

But, if your looking for speed and not a criminal conviction for class-A narcotics, speed can be bought legally. A race bike will be faster than a BMX. A pair of trainers will be faster than welly boots. Everything you wear or use can help you go faster.

Take bikes. Every bike is different. Even if you just look at race bikes you still get bikes which are better for climbing, better for sprinting, better for comfort or better for keeping your bum dry when it’s wet. (I may have made that last catergory up, but, if it’s not a thing then Specialised or Trek should definitely make it happen. Who wants to go faster when it’s raining? You just want a dry bum!).

The Stirling Duathlon was our chance to test whether different bikes could make a difference when racing. I was using my TT bike and Iain was using an aero bike, which is the technical name for a smaller less comfy bike sold to big men on the basis they’re sore back will make them think they’re cycling harder.

A TT bike on the other hand is the technical name for a smaller less comfy bike sold to big men on the basis they’re sore back will make them think they’re cycling harder but, and this this crucial bit, they also look cooler than a normal bike because you’ve got handlebars shaped like a unicorn.

The race was on. Well, I say on, but for five minutes I kept pace with Iain before deciding to try an early break to see if he could keep up or if he’d fall away.

After five minutes I looked back and he was nowhere to be seen.

I then spent the rest of bike leg trying to go as fast as I could to make sure he didn’t catch me on the line.

Now some people (Iain) might say that I’d merely bought my speed by buying a different (faster and cooler looking) bike. But I like to think I got my speed the old fashioned way – no, not in a Lance Armstrong blood bag delivered by motorcycle courier – but through hard word, dedication, sheer grit and effective training.

Also, I had a pointy aero helmet. And it looked really, really cool. 🙂

Andrew

Diagnosis: gubbed (Andrew)

Good news and bad news from Billy Bilsland’s crack team of bike mechanics and life support unit. The bad news is that my race bike is gubbed. The good news is that my frame had a six year warranty I knew nothing about and the manufacturer will replace it for free. Woo hoo (tinged with sadness)!

I say sadness because while I’m glad I don’t have to buy a new bike I am sad to see my old bike go – though not completely. The wheels, handlebars, seat and components will be stripped and swapped to the new frame,  which sounds look a good idea – but then I start thinking it’s the bike equivalent of swapping one girl for her younger sister and then telling her to wear her older sister’s clothes before you take her for a ride.

It’ll be strange, I think, to see my new/old bike. It’ll be the same bike, the same model, but also not the same. Will it be an identical twin and I won’t notice the difference? Or will it be Danny Devito’s twin to Arnold Schwarzenegger? I’ll find out this week as I should get a call any day to tell me it’s ready to collect.

Iain

Stirling Duathlon (Iain)

dual
djuːəl/
adjective – consisting of two parts, elements, or aspects.

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Last Sunday, Andrew and I raced the Stirling Duathlon – a 10K run, 42K bike, 5K run.

I have one issue with the event. I don’t like the name: Duathlon! It confused friends and family. They all said “Shouldn’t it be a run, then bike, then stop?”

I agree – a Duathlon isn’t two things. Its three! A 10k run, a 42K bike ride and a 5K run. That’s two different runs.

I think a better name would be dryathlon – due to the lack of swimming you avoid getting wet 🙂

We’d both entered the Stirling Triathlon before. On each occasion I’d beaten Andrew. I therefore hoped to do it again – but Andrew cheated! He brought his time trial bike. He also brought his “twat hat”, which he prefers to call an aero helmet.

This is mechanical doping! The bike is the mechanical bit and the dope is the man in the pointy helmet riding it.

I knew my chances of winning had diminished.

10k Run (50 min)

The run is 4 laps of Stirling university campus. There’s a wee hill that provides a short sharp shock to the system. During lap 1 I thought to myself “This hill isn’t as bad as I remember.” During lap 4 I thought “Does this f$%ing hill ever f$%ing end!”

42K Bike (1hr 26 min)

Within a mile of the start Andrew shot past me. His more aerodynamic position and ice cream cone for a helmet gave him an advantage. I tried to keep up but couldn’t. The course is two loops of the Ochil hills. I did both my loops in the exact same time. I may not be quick but I am consistent.

5K Run (26 min)

It was another two loops of the hill which meant I had to pass Andrew twice. On both occasions he reminded me how far ahead he was. Spotting his smiling face twice was worse than the f%$king hill!

Overall

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My aim was to run the first 10k in 50 minutes, the bike in less than 90 minutes and the last run in less than 30 minutes. I achieved all three so I’m happy with that.

On the day the best Todd won but I’m still leading the Todd championship! The next round of this prestigious event will be the Dirty Reiver race in April.

PS – Is a running event a monoathalon?

PPS – free beer at the finish 🙂

Iain

Alloa Half Marathon (Iain)

I ran last year’s Alloa half marathon in 1 hour 41 minutes. This year, I completed it in 1 hour 46 minutes. Five minutes slower! What went wrong? What is the difference between this year and last?

It’s Andrew’s fault! This was the first time I’d ran the race alongside him. In previous years I’d run it by myself.

The main difference is that Andrew chats to me as we runs. After listening to him throughout the race  I can conclusively say that not only is his chat boring but it also has a drag effect of 23 seconds per mile 🙂

The race was enjoyable but I was tired after biking a lot during the week. I’d not have been any quicker even without the Andrew Drag Effect .

The highlight of the run was spotting this guy

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“Leven Las Vegas” is the best name for a running club in Scotland. I can claim this because I’ve just spent ten minutes trawling through club names on the Scottish Athletics website. Most clubs are very boringly named. I’m looking at you <insert name of town here> running club. Which is what most seem to be called.

So, next year at Alloa, I want to see some clubs raise their name game and wear club vests with a bit of personality.

Here’s some sugeestions

The Skyes the limit running club

The Perth, wind and fire running club

The Tain green bottles sitting on a wall running club

I could do this all day!

The Clydebank robbers running club

The Kinlochleven on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again running club

Ok – I’ll stop now! 🙂

 

 

Andrew, Race Report

Race report – Alloa Alloa (Andrew)

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alloa

Listen carefully, I will say this only once: I’ve never wanted to run the Alloa half marathon. Two reasons:

  1. There’s a five mile long straight.
  2. There’s a five mile long straight!

(Except for 50 metre kink in the middle where you run down a street then run up it again).

I like drunk running, the kind that doesn’t involve any straight lines. I like scary movie running, the kind that promises a surprise around every corner. I don’t want to see where I’m going for the next half an hour as I move forward in a long line of other people all going in the same direction. That’s not running, that’s high energy queueing.

This year I had no choice. I had to run the Alloa half marathon because the race I wanted to run – the Balloch to Clydebank half marathon  last weekend – was cancelled due to construction work at the finish line. I had to run something in March and this was the next race on.

Iain’s run it before. His description wasn’t promising.

“See that five mile stretch?”

“Yes.”

“It’s horrible when it’s straight into the wind – also it’s hillier than you think.”

“I thought it was flat?”

“It’s not.”

“Damn.”

And he was right. The race isn’t flat, the first three miles are uphill, the tenth mile features a long climb to a roundabout. Even the flat section is a slight rise. It wasn’t fun. Not as a first race. Not when the Balloch to Clydebank half is largely down hill and breaks you in gently to the year.

On the plus side. The race is very well organised with water stations roughly every two miles and roads closed and traffic managed so that it feels like you’re on a closed course.

It’s also very popular with nearly 3,000 runners. We had to queue to get into Alloa. And not a high energy queue, we had to queue bumper to bumper as runners tried to get to the start on time.

It was the same story on the way out. Not that it’s a surprise that people would queue to get out of Alloa. It’s the kind of town that inspires people to leave…

Despite heavy legs and a couple of breaks to stretch off a tight back, I was pleased with my time. 1 hour 47 minutes – 1 hour 48 if you include the time it took to switch off Strava, which I don’t… 🙂

For a first race, and a thought that I wasn’t running that fast, it turned out to be faster than I expected. I only checked my time on the last mile and was surprised it was just over 1 hour 40 minutes and not closer to 1 hour 50 minutes.

A good start even if Iain did win after running off when I stopped for an energy gel at seven miles. Energy gel breaks don’t count for time, do they? If not, I’m sure I won…

Finally, a warning…

I spotted on the Alloa website a warning that anyone wearing headphones would not be covered by insurance and that headphone wearers ran at their own risk. When I was on my own I switched on a podcast and I have a warning too. Don’t listen to Russell Brand’s Under The Skin podcast about politics, economics and social theory when running. Big words don’t make you run faster