It’s three in the morning and I’m sat on a chair in a tent with my head between my legs, trying desperately to stretch my back muscles. It isn’t making much difference to the amount of pain that I’m feeling. For the last three or four laps of the Strathpuffer, I’ve tried to ignore the pain and shift my position around on the bike as much as possible. My mind was on ‘pain relief’ and not on ‘nutrition’ as much as it should have been, so I was heading for a bonk, big time.

I’d crawled off the bike, back still in agonising spasm, head spinning from the rapid drop in blood sugar due to my lapse in concentration. Annoying. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing.

Up until now, the Strathpuffer had been going well (for me at least). I’d entered as a singlespeed rider, only because I was curious about being able to maintain the required pace without gears and up until the 16 hour mark, I’d been smashing it.

photo: Rachael Eaton

The only downer up until then was that Dave had earlier suffered a bad crash off the side of a bridge having been in the lead. His race over. Phil had a few problems with punctures, allowing me to overtake and lead for a while. My lap times were good. I was coping. Considering I was spinning like a loon due to my lack of proper big gears on the flat bits and standing up and grunting up most of the hills, I was enjoying this.

Then I was far from ‘coping’.

My back went. It was the same lower back pain that I had at UK24 a couple of years ago. One or two too many stood-up climbs perhaps, I grimaced my way back to the Team JMC pit, downed some protein, rubbed in some Ibuprofen gel and set off again.

After a few more laps of ‘slow n painful’ I crawled off my bike and onto a chair. Eventually I got changed into normal clothes, tried for ages to get semi-comfortable and went to sleep in the van, my race also over.

2 hours later I woke up, wriggled my toes, got dressed into dry cycling clothes and decided I was going to spend the remainder of the race salvaging some dignity. My back still very sore, I figured that I could perhaps secure the singlespeed category win if I could get a few more laps in.

I was right – I won the singlespeed cat by 3 laps but couldn’t help but be a little bit disappointed to have finished 5^th overall.

Would I do it again? Probably.

While all this was going on, Phil battled onwards and claimed the overall solo win and before he’d dropped out, Dave had recorded the fastest lap of the entire event, which wasn’t too shabby for a soloist ;0)

Despite my resolution at the end of the 2010 cyclocross season to “have a half-decent ‘cross season next time”, my effort this time was a bit lame. I managed to attend just two cyclocross races, one was the Macclesfield Supacross – an hour-long tear-arse around a park in Macclesfield. Conditions were quite nice, not too cold, quite dry and the course didn’t turn into a total bog. So it was fast. Saw lots of friends. Budge’s dad brought his hip flask. Great fun.

My second race was the grand Yorkshire League finale (I think) – the Todmorden Cyclocross event, where the vets’ race was a mere 40 minutes long. 40 minutes? I’ve had longer showers than that. I entered the vets race and to satisfy my tendencies for stupidity, I also entered the hour-long seniors (under 40s) race. At least I’d have 20 minutes or so between each race to compose myself, change into a clean jersey (how pro), etc.

Photo – Steve Makin

The course was hell. Shin-deep puddles of thick mud, the usual thigh-mashing steep climb up the slippery cobbles, more mud…some barriers to heroically leap across…some mud…

I finished the vets race in mid-table mediocrity then with only 10 minutes of the second race to go I pulled a muscle in my leg during a ‘flailing arms and legs’ dismount in the middle of (you guessed it) a bog. Off I limped to a dnf. Great fun.

There were some summer cyclocross races last year. I think they might be the way forward for me….I’d only enter one at a time in future though.

This weekend I’m finally going to make it to the start line of the Strathpuffer (I’m not going into why I didn’t make it last time again). Normally the weather forecast hovers somewhere between ‘ice’ and ‘snow’ or even both, so this is the only 24 hour race I’ll ever do where I find the current ‘wind, rain and mild temperatures’ forecast encouraging.

Despite having raced for 24 hours several times before, this time I feel like I’m stepping into the unknown. I’m tackling the race singlespeed this time. I’m also hideously under-prepared, but that’s a subject for a very boring blog post so I won’t bother.

To be fair the course suits singlespeeding quite well plus there are a few benefits in having no derailleurs or gear cables at the Strathpuffer. I’ve got a pair of On-One Scandals, one of them a brand new one that Brant personally delivered to my house last night (in return for the obligatory cuppa). Despite it having only one gear, it’s got a suspension fork and a tapered headtube. Yeah, I’m bouncing and stiff-front-ending my way into the 21^st century, readers.  I’ve also got a huge bag of brake pads, all ready for the conveyor belt of destruction.

I’ve been scratching my chin for weeks about appropriate gear ratios, I think I’ve settled on something just about sustainable for the full race on both bikes so here goes…..

2011 was one of those ‘eventful’ years. All the big stuff is well-documented elsewhere in this blog, so I’ll summarise…

• I got hit by a car a week before the Strathpuffer.
• I missed the Strathpuffer.
• I started riding bikes properly again just in time to regain some fitness for the big races in the early summer.
• I organised Hit the North 2.5 almost single-handedly…and it turned out just fine.
• Dave, Phil and me went to France to ride the cobbles of the Paris-Roubaix sportive, which was utterly brilliant.
• I had a nightmare in the Whinlatter Challenge then rode back from Keswick.
• Rode a few road sportives, most of them in the rain and wind. One of them a week after a 24 hour race (that was as horrid as it sounds).
• Me and Dave rode the Way of the Roses ‘3 day coast to coast’ in 10 hours. A record.
• I had a nightmare at the Enduro 6 which persuaded me to finally swap to tubeless tyres.
• I did ok – better than 2010 –  at the 24 Hours Of Exposure.
• I drank a very large mug of the Rapha crazy-strong expresso on a night ride and I think got a touch of caffeine poisoning.
• Me and Dave won the Gisburn Dirty Dozen pairs cat. Again.
• I came 3^rd at Mountain Mayhem behind Dave and Ant. Again.
• Rode the Dalby MTB Marathon, wished I hadn’t.
• I celebrated my 40^th birthday with family, close friends, Scotland, beer and bikes.
• I dipped my toe in the water in a couple of local road crits. Crashed.
• Me and Dave took 16 hours to ride most of a 13 hour ride.
• Had some ace skills coaching from Ed Oxley.
• My brakes disintegrated 20 miles into the Kielder 100. Worth the trip though for the start-line banter.
• I didn’t crash at the 3 Peaks Cyclocross, but was slower than the year before when I did crash.
• I won the overall solo at Relentless24.
• I changed bike sponsor to On-One/Titus.
• I rode a lot more training, commuting and racing miles in 2011 than I did in 2010 and there’s still a week left to go (not that it matters much, but still.)

More ‘yay’ than ‘boo’ in that lot I think. I’m sure I represented myself and my sponsors pretty well, I might have pulled some quality grumpy faces but I mostly had a good laugh.

Aims for 2012? Much more of the same… a notch or two of progression (or at the very least my usual ‘small increments of improvement’) in the things I’m best at – 24 hour solos – plus more fell and trail running, more short-course XC MTB races, some of that summer cyclocross, a ‘wiser’ approach to road crits (will probably still crash though), a trip to the 24 hour solo world’s in Italy, a couple of (hopefully) record-breaking daft rides and the best Hit the North ever.

Finally, I’ve always wanted to do this….I’m sending some love to the following groups and individuals that have inspired, helped, advised, encouraged and have done me big favours over the past 12 months…Debbie, Michael, Budge, Phil, Jacqui, Wayne, Dave, Angela, Brant, Matt, Lee and Rachael, Will and Pete at Hotlines, Alan at Hope, Kylie and all at 2Pure, Ant and all at Mt Zoom, the staff at Oldham hospital for scraping me off the tarmac and putting me back together again, Andrew the spider, Carl and all at Squirt Lubes, Simon, Ed for the ‘chin up’ advice, Other Dave and Alan for the riding in mud and jumping on bikes advice, Jenny and James from British Cycling, Warren, Chipps, the Twitter crowd, Greg, everyone who helped at Hit the North 2.5, everyone that has ever raced at any Hit the North, Rich and Shona at Keep Pedalling, Shaun and Sarah at Cooksons, everyone with the get-up-and-go to organise races….and anyone else who I might have forgotten. :LOVE:

It’s less than 6 weeks until the Strathpuffer. Following the mishap a week before the race last time, I’m just planning to get there in a reasonable state of fitness and enjoy this next few important weeks of training. I’m doing what a usually do – my plan seems to have been quite effective in the past and if I stick to it and really commit to the somewhat ‘unusual’ hours, I can fit in a serious amount of quality time on the bike per week without upsetting too many people too much….

Aside from the loneliness of solo late night rides in the various hills that surround Manchester, the vomit-inducing interval sessions in the cellar astride the turbo trainer and the fast lunchtime laps of the Hit the North course on whatever bike I’ve rushed out of the door on that morning, one of the highlights of the training week is the Tuesday morning, super-early, few hours before work ride with Phil.

Pretty much in the same boat as me, Phil’s got kids, a busy job and some ambitious racing goals that he needs to put the effort in for. Our Tuesday rides have been one of the cornerstones of my training for a couple of years now – it’s a moderately long road ride where we meet on a street corner in a neighbouring county then ride for a bit, catch up on family news, have a laugh then increase the pace and pretty much race each other up one of the longest (and windiest, most exposed) climbs in the country.

Down the other side, a quick handshake and we go our separate ways to work or breakfast table.

Leaving the house to go cycling at 4:50am to meet a friend 18 miles away is a pretty silly thing to do but we’ve been doing this for so long now it seems normal. The threat of email and Twitter taunts if one of us cries off means that the motivation to get out of bed is always there and not once have we had a ‘crap ride’. Even when it’s dark and it’s snowing….just like at the Strathpuffer.

Last weekend I spent some time buggering about trying to attach the camera to my bike, spent some time trying not to fall off while filming a lap, spent a stupid amount of time editing/swearing/shouting at the footage and the result is this.

I’ve edited out quite a lot, including a number really horrible bits that look verrrry slow on-screen, but I think this gives you the general idea. There’s a lot of leaves out there (because it’s November, duh!) and it’s pretty slippy-slidey in places but I reckon this is the best course yet.

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