Good news everyone, I’m back and I’ve got my “Mojo” back. You’ll have to accept my apologies for the missed Blog last week, but after the exertions of “Operation Carpet” last weekend was pretty much spent catching up on odd jobs, doing multiple tip runs to get rid of all the old stuff and pottering around on the allotment. So, nothing of any interest that we haven’t seen a thousand times before, and I suspect that you’ve all been to your local recycling place, so I’m sure you can imagine the joys of that.
Before we get into the excitement of this week’s adventure, let’s just have a catch up on my knees. I know, exciting isn’t it! If you cast your mind back a few weeks you’ll remember that I haven’t been running since the Cerne Giant marathon at the end of March due to my Left knee being sore. I suspected that a week spent on my knees fitting carpet would make it much worse, but strangely the opposite seemed to be true. All along it’s been a strange one as it only hurts in certain positions (kneeling down with my weight pushed forward or curled up with my knees under my body) so I’d suspected that it might not be muscular as much as cartilage or bone related, but either way it’s been playing on my mind and the unknowing was starting to get me down. To that end, last week I decided that it has had long enough to start getting better on its own (and it was starting too) and booked an appointment with the Physio to find out what was actually wrong with it. So, to cut a long story short, the Physio took about 2 seconds to work out what the problem was and what I’d done. It transpires that my Left leg is weaker than my Right (something I already knew) and because of that my Left knee isn’t as steady when I’m running, it’s dropping inwards at the end of each step, (more so when I’m getting tired) which has allowed the end of my leg bone to rub on the joint making it really sore (or something like that). The important bit though is that it’s fixable. I’ve got a load of strengthening exercises to do to try and equalise up my legs, which will also give the knee joint a chance to recover and mend. But he thinks 6-8 weeks and I should be back up and running, with no permanent damage, which is a real result. And as an added bonus, playing bikes isn’t going to make it any worse, so I’m Ok to kick the arse out of the cycling, as long as I’m not running for the time being! To say that was a massive weight of my shoulders is an understatement and I came out of the Physio’s grinning like a Cheshire cat. Yes, it’s a few more weeks of not running, but even if it drags on longer than predicted (it feels a million times better already having not run for a few weeks, so I’m hoping that won’t be the case) there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and no matter how long it takes, my running career isn’t finished yet. So, cleared to go cycling, that’s what I’ve been up to this weekend. Although to be honest, if the physio knew the extent of this weekend’s stupidity, he might not have been quite so quick to say, “Cycling’s fine, knock yourself out”. In fact, everyone that I’ve told what I was up too said “Your nuts” or words to that effect and I don’t recall anyone saying, “That sounds like fun” or “That sounds like a good idea” and I’ve no idea why.
What was this weekend’s stupidity then? Well, if I’m honest, even I think this one’s a bit bonkers, but I present to you, The Tour of the Southern Shires 400Km Audax. That’s 400km (250 miles) of Audaxing fun, starting from Rowlands Castle on the south coast, before heading up to Daventry and back with a 22:00 start on Friday night. Yes, that’s right a 22:00 start!
22:00, that’s bedtime. Although if I’m honest I often struggle to stay awake until then, let alone do a full day’s work and then set off on a 400k at that time of night, which may have been something to do with why everyone thought I was nuts. Me I just thought it was a brilliant idea. Squeeze another full day into the weekend, what’s not to like about that?
Cycling home from work on Friday afternoon in the rain, I was starting to think that maybe this wasn’t quite such a good idea, but the forecast was for the rain to have stopped by 22:00 and then remain dry for most of the ride, so Friday afternoon I cracked on with sorting my kit out in the hope that they were right.
By Friday evening I’d cleaned my bike and replaced the freehub and fitted new bearings to the derailleur cogs (It’s always a good idea to be messing around sorting out worn out parts a couple of hours before a 250 mile ride and an even better idea to be fitting new bearings to allegedly unreplaceable parts, but that’s another story) and squeezed my bike into the little Peugeot, I’d normally take the van, but typically the only parking in the vicinity has a height barrier and the van won’t fit! By the time I sat down to tea with “The Emma” the rain had stopped, and the skies cleared, which looked promising. Driving down to the start the temperature gauge on the car said it was 5 degrees, which wasn’t so promising, but “in for a penny in for a pound” at least it wasn’t raining. I spent a few minutes in the car park putting on and taking off different clothing combinations, trying to decide what to wear and what to leave behind, but in the end made the decision to add an extra top. An unusual decision that I was sure was going to be a bad one, as it’s rarely cold enough for 2 tops and a jacket, but something told me that I might regret not taking it, and there was no more room in my saddle bag, so it was either set off wearing it or leave it behind. Arriving at the start I was surprised at the number of other people stupid enough to be out at bedtime, with there being roughly 40 others standing around making small talk and watching the time tick down towards the magic hour of 22:00. Gathered outside, the departure time finally arrived and after the normal stand around and look at each other waiting for someone to make the first move, we were finally off into the dark, a gaggle of red lights and high viz vests filling the road ahead. Heading into the South Downs National Park the climbing soon started as we ascended towards Old Winchester Hill and then made our way towards Hungerford on familiar roads, their familiarity stripped away by the darkness, adding a sense of the unusual to the nights ride. The call of “Hedgehog” from the rider just in front caught my attention amidst the normal pothole warnings, rousing me from my daydreaming and bringing a smile to my face as we moved across the road to pass the little mammal crossing the road, but there was little else to see as we made our way steadily North through the darkness. Making good time the first checkpoint at Hungerford arrived just before 02:00 and I stopped for the first time with 55 miles on the clock to get a proof of passage receipt from a handy ATM, and took the opportunity to add my down jacket to the layers I was already wearing. That wasn’t a good sign as it meant that I was now wearing all the layers I had with me and if I had to stop for any reason, mechanical failure, puncture, etc, I was likely to be in trouble and get very cold very quickly. The night however was really cold, with a frost glinting from the roadside foliage and at least I had an extra layer with me. I spoke with some riders at a latter control who had really suffered through the hours of darkness towards dawn, and boy was I glad to have opted to wear that extra top earlier. Leg 2 saw us routed up some narrow, gravelly and pothole lined county lanes, which required some extra concentration in the darkness. With only your lights to see by it’s easy to miss a pothole in the dark and the first you know about it is the bone jarring shock through your wrists as the front wheel drops into the chasm, at which point there’s unlikely to be a happy outcome. You’re either going over the handle bars as the bike comes to an abrupt stop or it’s probably going to be puncture time as the front tyre takes the full force of the impact. Which was the exact outcome for a couple of riders in front, who as I arrived on the scene were all busy replacing inner tubes, having all been down the same hole. Not the best outcome for your nights ride and one that I was lucky to avoid on this occasion. A few flatter miles through Oxfordshire saw the average speed creep up a bit, and just before 05:00, with the pre-dawn glow just starting to lighten the night sky, the smell of frying bacon wafted into my nostrils. Bacon frying in the middle of nowhere could mean only one thing, and sure enough seconds later, brightly lit up like a UFO conveniently landed at the roadside, the welcome sight of the second control hove into view. Rolling to a stop I dismounted to a warm welcome. “Brew? Bacon butty? Refill of your water bottles? Have a seat in our little oasis”. It’s guys like these that willingly give up a night’s sleep to set up a control in a layby in the middle of nowhere, on a freezing cold April night, that make Audax what it is, and I can tell you for a fact that that bacon butty was the best one I’ve had in a long time, possibly ever, and it did wonders for my morale! Much as I would have liked too, I couldn’t sit in their little oasis of calm forever, so with my hunger sated and fingers feeling slightly warmer, I bade them farewell and pushed on into the coming dawn. The coming of which heralded a change of weather as the temperature increased slightly, replacing the finger stinging cold with a low, damp, dank, mist, which enveloped the surrounding countryside in its damp cloak and held the dawn at bay for longer than it should have. Eventually, the rising cacophony of birdsong announced the day's start and the sun pushed away the darkness, although not the damp mist. Damp mist in the daylight is better than the freezing dark though, and it was with a sense of relief that I could turn off my head torch and actually see where I was going for the first time in nearly a hundred miles. I don’t know why, but I’ve often found that with the breaking of day an overwhelming tiredness envelopes you. I’d been fighting to keep my eyes open for a while and at one point I was definitely asleep whilst pedaling along. I know I was asleep as I awake with a start! Micro sleeping was a sure sign that I needed to stop for a few minutes and spotting a handy bus shelter with a comfy looking bench I pulled over and sat down. I was probably only asleep for a matter of seconds, certainly not long enough for the person following behind to catch me up, but it did the trick and when I stood back up and remounted my bike, I felt like a different man. Shortly after 08:00 I rolled past a bench overlooking some allotments which looked familiar. Racking my brains, it soon came back to me. I’d stopped there for my tea on my way back from our holiday in July 2021, which meant there should be a big hill just around the corner. Sure enough, my memory was correct, and that big hill gave me plenty of time to reminisce about the last time I was in this spot as I edged slowly towards the top. I might have been over a hundred miles from home, but I’d still been there on my bike before, and I vividly recalled that I’d struggled to get up this climb then. A situation which was repeated this time around too, as I dismounted and pushed the last few meters to the top, beaten by the terrain for the first time on this ride, but not the last as we will see later! Cresting the top I knew that I was only minutes away from the next control and the halfway point at Daventry where we were scheduled to stop at a 24 hour garage, and my thoughts turned to breakfast and what delights I was going to treat myself too. Apparently, the garage had a Subway, so thoughts of footlong breakfast rolls and a hot brew drove me on for the final couple of miles. Imagine my surprise and utter dejection then to discover that the Subway was not open yet! The first major blow to my morale struck! A bag of crisps, a squashed sandwich from my saddle bag and a Wispa bar had to suffice. It wasn’t a footlong breakfast roll though! Morale crushed, but hunger temporarily sated. I was back on the road heading South by 09:00, crawling slowly back up the other side of that interminable hill as fellow riders rolled easily down, making their own way towards the disappointment of the closed Subway and their own halfway point. Making my way steadily towards the next major checkpoint at Thame, by mid-morning the mist had been burned off by the weak spring sun which made the odd appearance, and I’d had to stop a couple of times to start shedding some of the layers that I’d put on during the night. Thick gloves replaced by thinner ones, Down jacket back in its place in my saddle bag, wrist warmers and a top follow, getting squashed under the flap of my saddle bag as I start to run out of space, and finally my thin hat joins them. It had better not warm up much more as I’ve run out of storage space, but at the same time a couple of degrees warmer would be lovely. Heading towards lunchtime and I seem to be making slow progress, it looks like I’m still an hour from Thame, meaning it’ll have taken nearly 5 hours to cover 48 miles. Looking back now, that’s not too bad considering that I’d done 170 odd miles by then and not been to sleep for over 30 hours. But at the time it seemed ridiculously slow, and it started to gnaw at me, “If it’s taking this long to cover the miles now, what state am I going to be in this afternoon?”. Eventually though, Thame arrived and rolling through town I spotted a chip shop, “That’ll make up for the disappointment of breakfast”. Sausage and chips with extra salt and vinegar and a can of fizzy pop, just what the doctor ordered, and a handy seat in the war memorial gardens to sit and enjoy it on, does it get any better than that? Half an hour later, refreshed and reinvigorated, I was back on my way, making my way steadily South, heading for familiar roads as I headed towards home. Would familiar roads be a blessing as I once again became aware of where I was, or would it be a hindrance? To be honest I’m not sure. Coming across familiar roads and landmarks reminded me of just how far I still had to go, but at the same time it worked the other way too, oh it’s only so far to XYZ, that’s manageable. What didn’t work in my favour was the knowledge of the terrain that was still in front of me. By early afternoon I was starting to really suffer as tiredness started to creep up on me and the endless battering from the awful road surfaces started to take its toll. Arriving at Bradfield for the next Info control my morale took a real dip as I realised how long it had taken to cover the 27 miles since lunchtime and the enormity of the task still ahead started to sink in. For the first time since setting off I started to wonder if I had this one in me. Could I really get back to the finish, or should I just cut my losses and head for home from here and sort out getting my car back tomorrow? Whatever I was going to do, I needed to head towards Kingsclere, so I might as well head that way. Putting some tunes on to try and distract myself I pushed on, trying my hardest not to look at the time or mileage. There’s only so long you can get away with not looking at the time when it’s staring directly at you from your handlebars though. 10 minutes pass, stop looking, I distract myself with some Lambs in a field and a Red Kite circling overhead, and when, what feels like hours later I look again, 2 minutes have passed. Arrgghhh!!!!! Things can’t actually be that bad though, because whilst it feels like I’m hardly moving, no one’s caught me up from behind, which must either mean there’s a big gap between us, or more likely we’re all moving at roughly the same speed. That theory gets rapidly blown out of the water minutes later, when crawling up another hill that I could normally fly up with no problems, I get passed by another rider. He’s not actually moving that much quicker though and I get into Kingsclere for the final control just behind him. We exchange small talk for a few minutes and he confirms that he feels about as tired as I do, which makes me feel a bit better, at least I’m not the only one struggling! Wandering into the small shop in search of some tea and a receipt, I find myself wandering aimlessly down the narrow aisles in search of something that I actually want to eat. Nothing really appeals except a packet of chocolate Hobnobs, but I can’t have Hobnobs for tea, can I? I wander around the little shop a couple more times, but still can’t find anything that I actually want to eat, so in the end I give into temptation and settle on a bag of salty crisps and that packet of biscuits. Healthy living at its best, but I suppose when you've been cycling nonstop for 19 hours, anything is better than nothing, and I desperately need the calories. Or that’s my excuse. Hobnobs for tea it is then! I’m on the move again by 17:00, trying desperately not to think about the significant amount of climbing that I’m going to have to drag my sorry legs over to get to the finish. It’s only 41 miles, a distance that I wouldn’t even blink at on a normal Saturday morning, in fact I can run that far, but today it’s looking like another 4 hours of slog. And a slog it is, interminable endless slog. Crawl up the hills in the lowest gear, a gear that rarely gets used, but has seen more than its fair share of the action today and roll down the other side. Except the roll down the other side bit never seems to come, in fact I’m certain that I didn’t actually go downhill at all from the moment we set off until I eventually got back! I briefly stop a couple of times as the evening progresses to start putting the layers on that I shed earlier as the temperature drops, treating myself to another biscuit or two every time. Eventually though the miles tick down until, as darkness descends, I find myself pushing my bike back up the steep side of Old Winchester Hill. I know that this is the last real brute of a climb between here and the finish, but as I reach the summit, as if to rub salt in my wounds, the rain starts. Cold, wet, heavy rain, and with-it darkness returns! Why? What have I done to deserve this? I ask the road, but there’s no answer, just more rain! Oh well, it’s not like I’ve never been cold and wet before, and there’s only one way to get out of the rain, and that’s push on. The road starts to descend after the Sustainability centre at East Meon, and for the first time in what feels like forever, my speed increases slightly. I need to keep my wits about me though, I can’t afford an accident on the dark and wet roads. As I finally roll back into civilisation I miss a turn at a roundabout and have to back track, it’s only meters but it’s still another blow to my tired mind. Finally, soaking wet, freezing cold, tired beyond belief, hands and wrists sore from the endless battering from the road and totally demoralised, I reach the finish. The lights of the village hall beckon and I wearily dismount for the final time, almost 23 hours and 250 miles since setting off and wander in to be greeted by the sound of a boiling kettle and the smell of freshly cooked food. And then a strange thing happens. I pull off my soaking wet jacket and gloves. I hand in my Brevet card and collection of receipts. And one of the lovely volunteers who has given up his Saturday night to welcome us back, makes me a brew and offers me a bowl of delicious homemade Chilli. And as I sat there in that warm dry village hall, sharing small talk with a couple of other riders who’d arrived just ahead of me and the lovely reception committee, my memories of all those hours of struggle, the pain in my hands, the tiredness in my legs, the cold, the wet, and the endless climbs fades away. To be replaced by memories of what I’d achieved over those 23 hours. The shared, often unspoken moments with other riders out on the road, the places I’d been and the things I’d seen, the feeling of the wind on my face and the sight of the road rolling beneath my wheels, the birdsong, that bacon sandwich by the roadside in the middle of the night, the underlying excitement as we waited to depart on Friday night, the sense of relief at finishing and a thousand other happy memories. There were plenty of times during the day when I’d rather have been anywhere other than riding my bike, in fact I was having an awful time for large parts of the evening. But, as I sat there listening to the conversations around me, I realised how wrong those thoughts had been. I hadn’t been having an awful time at all, I’d been having a brilliant time, I just didn’t know it!
Postscript
There’s no doubt about it, that was a brutally hard day out. I suspect that tiredness played a major part in how hard it seemed to be, and there’s no doubt that I struggled to maintain focus throughout the afternoon, which again played a major part in how hard the ride appeared to be. Was it actually any harder than any other 400km ride though? Setting off into the dark at 22:00 wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, the entire night section was really enjoyable, apart from the cold. Rolling peacefully along quiet country lanes, devoid of the normal traffic made a pleasant change, although the state of our roads is abysmal, requiring extra concentration to avoid disappearing down a gaping chasm. Reading back what I’ve written above, it sounds like a real slog fest, so the big unanswered question must be, did I actually enjoy myself? And the answer to that is as always, a resounding yes. Yes, I’ll grant you there were plenty of moments where I would have given anything to be not sat on my bike for a second longer and yes there were plenty of moments where I considered my sanity. But apart for a small blip approaching the last checkpoint I never doubted that I could complete this ride, and as soon as I stopped and sat down, any negative feelings were instantly replaced with elation at a job well done. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone is all part of the growing and learning process and we have two choices in life. We can either sit comfortably at home having an easy life, but never really growing as people or achieving much. Or we can take ourselves out of our comfort zone, we can push ourselves to the limit of what we can do and learn a bit about ourselves and possibly achieve greater things. It’s when you’ve pushed as hard as you can and you’re doubting your own ability, when your minds taking you to the dark places that you don’t really want to go to, and you’ve reached your limit that you really start to learn about yourself. There’s a post it note stuck on my desk as I sit here typing this, and there’s a couple of things written on it in my scribbly handwriting, two of which say “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength” and “If your not in over your head, then how do you know how tall you are”. Well, I’ve got a pretty good idea of how tall I am, but every time I push myself out of my comfort zone and come out the other side, then I grow a little bit taller, and I create a few more memories that will hopefully serve me well in my dotage. And of course I had a good time, it was bloody brilliant, I just didn’t fully realise it at the time!
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Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
March 2024
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