A Day in the Lakes

Too quick off the mark

Don’t answer an email when you are drunk.  The email I answered was an invite to take part in an event titled “A Day in the Lakes”.  Baz, living in the Lakes, had this on his doorstep and told us “this is going to be my crazy challenge this year” and threw out the invite for the rest of us to join.

Being drunk, I replied to the email with a snapshot of my confirmation of entry from the organiser.

This was in December.  As we ticked into January of 2015 the blood in my veins turned cold.  I had signed up for this quaintly named event in the Lake District which was actually a half Ironman or 70.3:

If you have followed the adventures herein you will know that despite being an avid and almost professional drinker I can also turn the pedals of a bike.  My love is for the dirt, tree and rock that threaten to smash my bones when I fail to respect them, like a slightly suicidal but healthy mid-life crisis.  I have also dabbed more than a toe in the world of the Tarmac T-Rex. 

It has always been my ability to endure “pain for the pint at the end” which has seen me through the road jaunts and also my love of being with the Wolf Pack, but here there was an issue.  Baz had signed up, Dan had signed up, Paul was now living in Seattle and Mark wisely refused.  The pack was reduced from the start.  So was I to have two comrades?  Not even, because these events are about you against you, trying to defy your own limits.  The fact that you are in a crowd is neither here nor there.  Not that I would see the crowd because Baz and Dan were already supremely better than me at tarmac cycling and the rules of no drafting made it impossible for us to ride together anyway.  Baz also ran like a Gazelle, so I was on for the hardest challenge I would ever face and it was for all intents and purposes, solo.

Solo was not new of course; Prudential Ride London was solo, Mitie London Revolution was solo and the Gorrick cross country races were solo but these were all on bikes.  What I needed to do was learn two very important things.  I had to learn how to run and how to swim.  I also only had 6 months left.    

Forming the Man

Readers should know that I am not the source for training advice or kit recommendations and that trend continues.  I looked at apps on the iPhone that coached a person from couch to 5k or 10k in a 12 week programme and decided that was a little too long into my journey, so on the 4^th January I stuck on a pair of shorts, trainers and shirt at work and ran 5k in a lunch break. 

I couldn’t walk up stairs for 3 days without wincing.

Once the legs worked again I ran another 5k at lunch.  I kept this process going until it stopped hurting and support from my colleagues led to a running group on Wednesdays which kept the miles rising.  After a short while I tried a 10k at lunch.  This hurt a little, but nothing like the first 5k.  Then I found a morning that was free on a wet weekend and I ran a half-marathon on the heath behind my house.  I had gone from couch to half-marathon in 4 weeks, but more importantly, I had completed the distance that was required of me.  A mental wall tumbled down.

As for swimming, the furthest I had ever swum was 1k and this was in a lunch break at college.  I used to go once a week to the pool next to the grounds and I could knock out this distance in just over 20 minutes, but at the time I was 19, thought smoking was the devil’s weed and was too poor to drink to destruction.  Much had changed over a decade, but I hoped swimming was like riding a bike and booked a day off work, calculated the distance in lengths of the 25 meter local pool and swam 1.2 miles in just under an hour.  More of the wall came down.

All the advice to train for this distance in both run and swim is opposed to what I did, but getting my body ready for it was not what drove me.  My body has been abused enough to recover from most things, but the key I needed to turn was whether or not it could get through it at all in order to then repair rather than fall apart during.  I was fighting fear, not fitness and although my legs took a beating in that first month and my eyes looked as if they might bleed because I had no goggles when I swam, I knew the distance was possible.  The bike was never an issue as I knew how to winch up a climb and I knew how to descend to make up time.  When you stop cycling you roll for a while to get your head back in the game, but when you stop swimming you stop.  When you stop running you stop.  Now I knew I didn’t need to stop and I was brave enough to start!

Only after the wall was down did I start investing properly, buying running clothes, joining the Garrison 50m pool to cut out half of the turns and to utilise the dead time between 9pm and 10pm so I missed no time with the boys and gave my wife quiet time to watch “Home & Away”.  The fear was dead and I had benchmarks of known ability.  All that was left was to improve them and to string them together, scouring websites for form advice, but more importantly, believing I could do it and to do it well.

As a man of finance this became a spreadsheet, but the plan was rather simple.  First I copied a Personal Best Iron-man training plan that spanned 12 weeks.  I halved the distances of each workout and added a new set of columns I named “Reality Plan”.  This was every week I had left, so in my first batch of weeks there was no Personal Best plan to compare it to, but that didn’t matter to me.  I was interested in the distances rather than the intensity and once I had booked out all the days I knew I couldn’t train on, all the weekends where family time trumped all, stuck in the few lad’s adventures that had been talked about, I finally had windows of opportunity.  In these I stuffed a little more distance in each discipline than the Personal Best plan had.

It was basic, but I lived to it with only a 20% slippage in Swimming and Running (whereas cycling fell to the wayside often)

·         Monday lunch                  -              5k

·         Tuesday lunch                  -              Weights

·         Tuesday evening              -              2k swim

·         Wednesday Lunch           -              5k

·         Thursday Lunch               -              5k

·         Thursday evening            -              2k swim

·         Friday Lunch                   -              Core and stability (almost Pilates, but not)   

·         Weekend                          -              Family time but with a monthly Half marathon thrown in

Weekends were my place holder for when to cycle in the plan, but it wasn’t happening.  I took the bike to work a few times for hill repeats but probably made no real difference.  I also had a trip to the Ridgeway with Mark for a 50 mile off-road blast and a Peak District two day epic on Mam Tor with Mat and Mark, but cycling was the middle child – forgotten.

The other disciplines received great focus and the Goddess also saw fit to look after her own again.  As a family on an outing to the Guildford splash pools we passed posters advertising cold water swimming at Guildford Lido.  This was February and my adventure there was the first swim in a wetsuit.  It may also have shortened my life a little; such was the cold that penetrated my soul.

Through work I also found a friend who was a GB triathlete.  He encouraged me to join him one Tuesday night at Reading Lakes, introduced me to methods such as drafting and also took me for a run which killed a little bit more of me; such was the pace he set.  I simply trusted fate and took these chances when family life allowed and every little piece of experience was something new, bolted onto the man like pieces of armour.

Sadly we lost Dan during the training process leaving just me and Baz in the running. Strava told me I was on for a loss against him, but that would be decided on the day.

The drive up

The day was as quickly upon me as I had feared it would be, but in another way it felt a little later than I had wanted.  I had felt for a few weeks that I was ready and then entered the tapering stage, but rather than being able to convince myself that this was helping, the loss of the constant training set a fear growing in me that I was losing my best.  Whether true or not, I could do nothing about it and set about my usual routine for any event, with multiple lists of items required, allowed my son to decorate what would be my transition box, wrote down what I intended to do in transition to commit it to memory and set about packing, ticking off and preparing to drive.

I dropped the children at nursery, did a quick shop to stock my wife up with goodies and set off for Cumbria, with the plan to collect an eBay purchase of a pram from Stockport for Baz on the way.  This should have been a 6 hour journey, but was 9 hours after the M6 and three trucks had a say in the matter.  That confirmed my wisdom to travel on Friday and not the day before as it simply didn’t matter what time I arrived. 

I actually arrived just in time for dinner and a quick meet and greet with the newest Simpson before he was taken to bed.  Homemade burgers and real ale I had picked up from Tebay services closed the day beautifully.

Saturday was a lazy day, drifting over to the staging site to sign in and receive our tags, all in glorious sunshine we both knew was not going to hold.  Baz and I could see the fells that would be the course for the run and stood on the banks of the lake wishing the buoys had already been placed, but overall we were quiet, thoughtful and if I am honest; bricking it.  

I was quick to order a pint when we stopped for lunch at the Punchbowl in Askum and I started on what was left in the house when we returned.  Mention of a quick ride out on the bikes filled me with dread and I knew there was no turning back.

That night we prepared first in silos, dealing with our own rituals and packing our own transition boxes.  Mine had been decorated by my son for luck and I spent a while collecting stickers from Baz's kitchen floor.  

Baz then cooked us a meal to put balls between our legs for the day and I wondered whether it actually had balls in it:

Regardless - it was scrumptious and while it sank down into our guts we stood together and talked each other through our race plans whilst ticking off the kit as packed when we mentioned it.  I had thought about it so many times and had now been at the lake edge so could summon the image of the race clearly.  Whereas a few hours ago I was terrified, suddenly I was ready.

Being ready does not mean I was able to sleep.

The Race

We were up at 6am and in the pre-packed car after a swift coffee and bowl of granola by 6:30am.  We were quiet in the car as we drove the 45 mins to the start, both looking at the head of a storm that had already broken ahead of us.  Views of mountains and green had already been replaced with grey sheets of falling rain.

The rain eased a little before we parked up and moved our kit to transition.  The wind did not and nor did the sky have any intention to clear.  The organisers had told us to be ready to go down to the water at 8am for the start, but during the briefing he told us that this was to be delayed.  The wind was so strong at the far end of the route that the safety kayaks were having trouble in the waves.  Instead the buoys would be moved and the course would be a two lap effort, still 1.2 miles, in the less deadly waters.

Standing in the water I looked at the amount of people waiting to start.  The first wave set off at the siren and it was a frantic foray of splashes around the purple caps.  Very soon it was time for us orange heads to move out to the start for the second wave where it was deep enough to have to tread water.  Confident in my abilities I moved to the front.  Wise to triathlon, Baz stayed at the back.

Our siren sounded.  I swam hard towards the first buoy and was in the lead group, but not far enough ahead for it to matter.  I came too close to the buoy and couldn’t turn quick enough.  The swimmers behind me began to clamber over me, pushing me down and letting me taste Ullswater’s offerings.  I tried to get out of the way and was pushed under again, coming up afterwards gagging and watching as the field of athletes, including Baz, crept away.

It was over for me at that point.  I swam behind the group, catching up with Baz, but feared getting close to people or even putting my face down into the cold water.  I felt defeated five minutes into a day’s long race.  I tried calling out to Baz, trying to convince myself that this was a fun day and his reply would make me laugh, but he had his eyes focused forward and earplugs sealing his ears shut.

I slowed down further and they crept away.  I passed the second buoy, still head up and wondering what I might do while Baz was out finishing the race.  He had the keys so I couldn’t pack the car so I would have to linger which I convinced myself would be fine.  I had money for coffee…

…but as I came to the last straight of the square I could see people exiting the lake.  The water was choppy, malicious and brutal.  The toll from one lap was hefty and suddenly I could not allow it to be me as well.  I had not trained for six months to be beaten by doubts.  So my face slipped into the water and within two clean breaths I was on the inside line of those reaching the buoy where it had started and where it had all gone wrong.

I cut around it with only a few bodies to navigate around and tried to sight the next buoy.  It was grey cloud ahead and nothing else, so I moved further inwards and used my breathing as a means for checking my progress through the water.  One head, two heads, three; I was faster than the back of the pack and didn’t belong there.  Four, five, six and more; I was catching bigger groups and I was passing them.  The third buoy was behind my shoulder and I had one more to reach before I could climb out of the water and begin the journey to completing this thing.

I swam that last stretch hard and scooped a handful of gravel in the shallows.  This alone let me know I was there and I stood up intending to run to transition, but the world tipped and met me on the left.  I laughed, gathered myself and stood up again.  People were looking at me so I called “am I winning?” to lighten the mood.  A step forward towards the laughter and I was down again on my left.  My balance was gone so I crawled to the shore, stood again and was suddenly being held by the shoulders.

A guy in a wetsuit, but not a competitor, had me.  He looked me in the eyes, checking if I was okay.  “That was a good swim” he said with a smile and I thanked him.  “You need to wait here for five minutes,” he added and I had to ask him to repeat what he’d said.  Once I understood at first I was annoyed, but quickly realised that this was someone caring for me, wanting me to be okay and wanting me to finish.

Five minutes later he let me go, insisting I walk and not run, which I did.  On route to the bike I removed the top of my wetsuit in the fashion I had learned from Gareth, my triathlete mate at work.  I also chuckled as I remembered a conversation I’d had with another work mate, David, during one of our runs.  He had said that people are affected differently by the swim and some come out of the water fine while others have no legs.  At the time I had said how I would be fine, but now I knew the truth of it and the memory removed any doubt that I could continue.  It was just how the water had affected me.

Back at the bike I saw people racing through their transition, going out in just a tri-suit into what had become a lashing cold rain.  I had hoped to finish within seven hours, but now I just wanted to finish.  I had been through my greatest battle in the water and it had been against my own mind.  Now was the time to let my body do the rest, so I sat down, dried my feet, dressed for bad weather, said hello to Baz as he left transition and set off when I was ready.

I rode hard, but the weather was brutal.  On the first stretch beside the lake where I had hoped to gain time I was faced with headwinds and rain that blinded me.  This was also going to be the story for me until I was at least half way through the route, so I backed off a little, considering staying on the bike more important that blasting against it and popping my legs.  After all, I had Kirkstone Pass, Shap Fell and a run over a mountain yet to complete.

I was not to be defeated by weather on a bike.  I had conquered the Prudential Ride London in a hurricane and that one was twice the length.  The miles just needed to be churned out and that is what I did, getting out of the saddle when I could and sitting down when I had to.

The Kikstone climb that I dreaded a little seemed to come very soon into the ride and the weather was not letting up.  I was looking forward to seeing the pub at the top which marked the end of that part of effort, but I entered the clouds halfway up and spent my time worrying more about the coaches and cars coming down the pass against me rather than the effort for me to get up.  Without even seeing the pub I was suddenly descending, with that headwind still prevailing and lashing my face with cold rain.

I had been passed by one and gained on three by the time I hit the bottom of Shap Fell, but I had expected this climb to be on a narrow winding road.  Instead it was a wide, boring and monotonous beast.  It was so different from expectation that I was completely shocked at the top when a man stepped out of the mist applauding me, saying “you’ve got 100 meters of Shap left and then it’s all downhill.”

It wasn’t all downhill, but it wasn’t climbing like I had experienced to that point.  I also had reached a point where the wind was now with me rather than against me and I started to clip along nicely, taking another three places and losing one when I needed to stop for a pee in a bush.  By the time I reached transition again the sun had broken through and I was smiling, knowing I was a run away from being a half ironman.

I treated transition the same as I had before, changing into dry jersey and socks and being comfortable before I set off.  Meanwhile a city type was throwing a fit about his time, screaming at his wife or girlfriend to go home because he was going to be hours before he finished.  She ignored him and although I had the urge to advise him to calm down I kept quiet.  That was his race and mine was mine.

Due to the weather at the start we were told we had to carry safety kit with us, so I was carrying a bag into the run with full body cover, a map, a compass, a whistle and rescue blanket despite the dramatic change in weather.  Rather than raincoats it seemed we were more likely to need sun cream!

    

I set off at a gentle pace and ran the small section of tarmac to the start of a steep climb into the fells.  Here I caught up with a lady called Helen and as she walked beside me up the rocky slope I shared out the wine gums I had in my bag.  At the top of the climb we ran together but it became apparent that my pace from ability to descend on loose rocks and shale was a touch faster than she was happy to hold.  I left her behind and before long reached the cut-off point and drinks station I had feared not getting to in time.

After all that had happened I was there in ample time and started off on the true climb of the run.   This took me up a broken trail, beautifully way-marked with small red flags at every hint of a junction.  I passed through streams, cut around broken down stone shepherd huts that had long lost their roof and then was directed over a bridge away from the mountain I thought I was going to climb.

Perplexed, I kept going and soon realised that there was a tremendous ridge joining the two.  I passed along this and then began the proper descent back to the drink station I had passed a while ago. 

I skipped down the side of the mountain with a flow that belied what I had already been through.  Six people fell behind me as I descended and these people had not even been in sight when I started the climb.  I was flying and so much so that one woman stepped aside and cried out “go on Mountain Goat!” as I passed her.

Back at the drink’s station I was led along a road for a short time, back up onto the fells for a little longer along a false flat and then down onto the road beside the lake.  A sign marked 5K to go and I plodded along, overtaking another two people before seeing the turning back into the field after what had seemed the longest 5k of my entire life.

My plan had always been to cross the line running and I stuck to this, but I did so wearing a stitch in my ribs that decided to strike in those last 10 meters.  Baz was stood waiting, having finished an hour and a half before me.  

We hugged, laughed, helped ourselves to the free offerings and then I grumbled that I had not been given a medal!  You get a medal nowadays for crossing the line on a fun run and I had already promised it to my eldest son to put in his dressing up box. 

It is surprising how small things can mean so much after trauma, but there it is.  I was annoyed for the whole time it took me to change into civvies in transition and to walk my stuff back to Baz’s car.  Once I sat down in the passenger seat the gripe had flown and our chins wagged as we shared each other’s stories.  

That night I packed the car and we ploughed through a reward of spicy pizza and expensive specialist beers before having one of the best nights sleep ever, partly because I think I died a little after making a good go at my beers on top of all we had done.

The next morning was an early start and  long drive home for me while Baz went to work.  I feel I had the better deal as I was able to collect the boys early and take them to the pub to enjoy the splendid sunshine.

So it was a long time coming and then over in eight hours and twenty four minutes.  I had been almost drowned in a lake, cycled through gale force wind, lashing rain, climbed two of the top 100 climbs on a bike and completed a half marathon on my first experience of fell running.  All in, it was a rather bold event to jump into without having any experience…

…but I am glad I did.  It wasn’t a race; it was a journey that started on the 4^th January and it is a journey that will now continue.  It was lonely at times, brutal at times, exciting and fabulous.  It was an experience shared with Baz even if he did have more than an hour between us by the end.  I knew the pain he had experienced because I had weathered it too.

So we were half ironmen and Baz is already talking about the full ironman status.  I am tempted, but I also learned that commitment to such a task requires sacrifice somewhere else.  A lot of training and a sprinkle of bloody-mindedness got me through this Day in the Lakes, but a full Ironman commanded a little more so maybe my journey will stray a little from Baz next year.

But there is always a mountain marathon to consider…

2013 - Heart of Darkness (The South Downs Way)

2013 was going to be a full year of cycling and I knew this from the start.  The triumph of Coed-y-Brenin put a firm date down – although location yet to be decided – for another winter MTB excursion, but I also had something big to look forward to before that.  I was working for MITIE and they had taken on the sponsorship of the London Revolution and for some foolish reason I had applied to be a part of it.  I did not even own a road bike at the time of applying, but was working on the principle that my MTB fitness would simply translate.

While I attempted to get a road bike sorted for the 186 mile race I carried on enjoying the dirt, but stepped up the intensity a little by incorporating races in the Gorrick Series, mainly because it was hosted in woodlands close to my home.  The first of these was at a place known as Tunnel Hill and was an eye opener to say the very least. 

This was my idea of training for a road race.  I was surrounded by men on mountain bikes…  wearing lycra.  I thought knobbly wheels came with baggy shorts, but here it was certainly not the case, despite it being a frosted February morning and cold enough to freeze the balls off a penguin. 

We all soon warmed up!  This highly technical course through heath and woodland ended up being a red-line session, almost bursting my lungs with how intense the Master Male class went at it.  I was frustrated that these riders left me for dead on the climbs and then more frustrated to find the same riders blocking my way as they struggled down the descents.  Fortunately the race organisers put a couple of “chicken runs” on some of the hard-core technical sections (punishing the fearful with a slightly longer course) which allowed me to jump big groups until we reached the next climb.

Two weeks later and I was at the start line again for another Master Male session and this time at Crowthorn Woods.  No warmer than last time, but even more technical with a section called Corkscrew which sang to everything I love doing on a mountain bike, however I came away from this feeling my race days were over before they had even begun.  My placement put me as average, slap bang in the middle on both races and yet I knew in my heart I was not an average mountain biker.  The joy of riding was not in pitching myself against other people but more the pitching myself against the terrain.  Speed was a consequence of skill and the races, although peppered with technical sections, were focused on how deep a rider could go into their pain cave rather than how fluid they could look passing over the ground.

The next training session was back with the wolf pack and as the organiser I was getting a little excited.  The South Downs Way is a 100 mile off road route and the first ever bridleway national trail in England.  It runs from Winchester which was once the Capital city of England until the 11th century and from the shadow of Winchester Abbey, flows through the countryside passing hill forts, Chanctonbury Ring and Devils Dyke all the way to the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head in Eastbourne. 

I had it planned down to the finest detail, with the wind behind us from Winchester completing 55 miles on day one with lodgings booked at Bramber.  Day two would then be shorter and a touch easier to allow us to enjoy an early completion.  The crew would be gathering at my house on the Friday with a short train ride to Winchester the next morning and would leave my house fully fed.

This plan was flawless…  until the national rail decided to screw me over completely and plan closures of the track on our weekend.  Instead we had to shift everything, traveling to London on the Friday and getting a train to the coast for Saturday morning.  The route was now from Eastbourne to Winchester with the wind in our face and starting with a first climb of Beachy Head.

Baz, Mark, Paul and Dan followed me to the start of the route from the train station and we paused briefly at the foot of the green trail sneaking a way up Beachy Head.  We were cold and irritable, looking at the sky growing darker and darker. None of us felt properly rested and the long train ride had done little to amend this.  We also knew that once we started we would be away from civilisation until we reached our end point at Bramber.

That first climb set our legs burning.  The gradient combined with the damp grass beneath robbed us of traction, but we made it up and pushed on over the ridge.  Two more climbs tested us, but also warmed us against the cold wind coming off the sea and we stretched out along an open ridgeline past the chalky seven sisters.  Our moods lifted as we settle back into the group’s signature atmosphere, but then we descended on a flint littered track and suffered the first casualty of the South Down’s Way.

A piece of flint had flown up from Dan’s front wheel and taken out his hanger.  We flipped his bike, feeling the warmth we had generated from our initial 17 miles slip away as the icy fingers of March picked through our layers.  There was no saving the rear derailleur, but we were too remote to do nothing.  Bravely we broke the chain, removed the derailleur and as best we could on a full sus Canyon, set Dan up with a single speed.  However we knew this was going to hurt with the 28 miles of terrain ahead so Mark heroically passed over his Camber and took the Canyon.

We pushed on, stopping again a few miles later to fiddle with the Canyon’s chain which had become too slack for Mark to use.  We were on a windswept ridge again with trees deformed from the constant gusts they had been forced to endure through life and in that short 10 minutes we too began to hunch over.

We made it down to the River Ouse and had to call what was really happening.  If there was no way Mark could carry on with the Canyon then none of us could handle it.  The ride was therefore over for Dan for the day.  Paul jumped on Google with the little reception he had and found that Lewes train station was probably reachable.  We suggested finding a bike shop to fix the hanger, but Canyon parts are not generally stocked by UK bike shops.  Instead Dan set off for Lewes, planning to get the bike back to London where he would collect his car and then drive down to meet us in Bramber.    

And then there were four and we pushed on.  A few more bitter climbs followed by rapid descents ate away at our energy levels so that when we came off the Downs Way onto the road leading to Bramber our group was limping.  The Castle Inn, prominent on the high street, was ridden right past where fatigue played tricks on our minds and we had to double back to go find it again.  I was so tired I could barely recall the name of it, but once checked in, showered and fed normality started to return.

The next morning I felt a little rough, having stayed in the bar when the others had retired and staying true to tradition, drunk a few too many jars than was appropriate.  We had a grand breakfast with Dan now back with us working as support car and started the ride with a little more positivity that we had the day before.

Paul knocked this out of us.  With hindsight we now realise he had already planned to drop out of the game, but that morning we knew nothing of the sort.  He set the pace, being one he knew he could handle for half the day and we blindly followed.  At points, trying to keep up, I imagined my lung was going to pop out of my mouth and hang over my lips like a skinned spaniel’s ear.  Our path was also now vastly different from the day before as we had entered the world of “Clag”.  This thick mix of sodden chalk and clay matted in the wheels until it literally locked out between the forks.  Ridding on the flat or uphill therefore involved pedalling a few strokes, manual the front wheel, slam it down to dislodge the clag and repeat over and over again.  

After one terrifying descent on a surface akin to ice, we came to a road crossing and Paul made his intentions known.  I sat on the ground and used a stick to unearth my wheels from the clag and listened as chat around the support car circled around us all giving up.  I let them talk.  I was in the deepest, darkest place I had ever been and at the heart of it all was a fire.

Mark walked over to where I sat and opened his mouth to speak.  I had been listening.  He was going to tell me we would not make it to Winchester for dark and we had no lights.  He would have said that Dan would drop Paul off at a train station and then collect us from somewhere further alone later.  This would have been the talk had he got a word out but my raised hand silenced him.

“I am going to f*cking Winchester!” I said in a flat, dead and matter of fact tone.

He paused as calculations whirled through his head and I love him because I saw the tick, tick, tick of simply acceptance drop past any potential objection he may have had until his mouth finally formed the simply word “okay.”

And then there were three.

I was in the pain cave when we left Dan and I never surfaced from it.  Mark led us, setting a pace to beat the failing light, but not so fast as to kill us on the trail.  Barry quit, then carried on, quit and then carried on more times than I could count on both hands and we kept on going.  At Petersfield we took water from Dan and bid him farewell.  We were close enough to my house now that my wife could step in as support car if we needed it, but I was still set in reaching Winchester.

Butser Hill came upon us like a sleeping giant and I watched in awe as Mark powered to the top while Baz and I had to even walk in zigzags beside our bikes to conquer the gradient.  From here we were too close to surrender.  Devils Dyke was a cruel climb and after this we descended too far, missing our route mainly from lack of concentration through fatigue, but a few country lanes brought us back to it and then the blessed sight of a sign saying Winchester was but a mile away.

The light had not been lost when we rolled through Winchester looking for the train station and nor had we been defeated.  I admit that the emotion rising up in me at the sight of our end point nearly brought me to tears and I choked on them as I rode beside Mark and Baz to the end.

I called my wife for collection while Mark and Baz purchased train tickets.  I also sourced a can of beer for myself and some for them to enjoy on the train ride home.  We had been through hell and there is no way for me to truly describe the challenge of the South Down’s Way on a wet weekend in March by using words.  It is a triumph and curse that only those completing it will understand and we three wore those scars.  Never had I been so deep into my reserves and as I write this in 2014 can say I have not yet been there again as yet.

Some use the phrase “Baptism of Fire”.  What is this in the face of a “Baptism of Clag”?

2012 -Coed-y-Brenin

Birthdays have gone down the route of Stag dos in as much as they no longer orbit around getting absolutely slamming drunk.  My birthday falls at the end of October which is not really road bike weather, so I decided it was time for us to visit the grandfather of trail centres - Coed-y-Brenin.

For those who don’t know, Coed-y-Brenin in the Snowdonia National Park is the reason why we now have trail centres all over the country and Coed-y-Brenin exists thanks to the tireless work of Dafydd Davies (a cracking Welsh name).  With no budget available for what he believed would be an incredible opportunity, he instead worked to build the trail in his own time, enlisting help from volunteers from youth organisations, local people and also the armed forces.  The result of this was the Tarw trail (Bull in Welsh) and the trigger for funding into other projects that have now enabled mountain bikers to access some of the best riding (and easy access to delicious cake afterwards) across the country.  He truly deserves the MBE his efforts earned him and I know for a first-hand how good this trail centre is!

It was 2012 and with 10 people chomping at the bit for some trail action I booked two log cabins in the Trawsfynydd holiday park close to the trail centre.  To be honest, birthdays for me are still a little bit about drinking so as well as being close to Coed-y-Brenin this place also tempted me by having a boozer at the centre of it.

The crew was for once a combination of two of my social circles.  In one cabin we had the original wolf pack – me, Dan, Mark, Baz and Paul.  In the second cabin were my snowboard buddies, Peter, Jim and Milo as well as some sound buddies of Jim, Dr Wellsy and Mr Cunningham.  Amongst the ten we had some awesome two wheeled talent so I knew it was going to be fast and furious, but I also knew it was going to be side splitting good fun.

The Challenge I set was to conquer The Beast on Saturday  27^th October – my actual birthday, but I set out for North Wales with Peter and Paul in my car early on Friday morning.  Traffic treated us well and we found ourselves at the beautiful trail centre hub by early afternoon.  With many of the party not arriving until late we had an opportunity to dial in, but more importantly, it gave Peter a chance to experience a trail centre for the first time.

Of all of us, Peter – aka Crackhead – had the least experience of MTB.  In fact, the only experience he had gained was during the few months running up to the trip I had planned.  I had taken him on the heath a handful of times and coached him on some of the things I wished I had known before starting, such as drops, berms, attack position and hanging off the saddle over the back wheel when it got steep.  These sessions had gone pretty well, albeit sprinkled with a few crashes that had left minor pieces of Peter along my regular circuit, but he really is a tough cookie.  His reaction to a crash is to carry his bike back up to before it happened and come back down to prove to himself he could do it.  For this reason alone I knew there wouldn’t be anything that could phase him here.

Our little trio set off from the car straight into the Blue run, Minotaur.  Starting with swooping berms and rolling paths along the side of the hill, we were quickly seduced into what the weekend was all about.  

Crank felt great beneath me, skipping through the trail surface and leaping up on command when required so that I opened huge gaps between myself and the other two.  Then coming through a tight forested piece of single-track my mind wandered, my right hand slipped off the grip and the front wheel hit a tree.  I flew away from the bike and landed in the dirt on my neck and shoulder, feeling a sudden burst of fire from the base of my skull all the way down to my tail bone.  I lay there motionless as my mind whirled into panic.  I had crashed before, on many occasions, but never had I felt this sensation.  I dreaded the worse; a broken neck.

As the sensation faded I realised I could feel stones digging into my legs, so gingerly began to move.  The more I moved the more confident I felt, until I was at last on my knees and the relief sweeping through me set me off laughing like a loon.  It was at this point that Peter and Paul finally reached me, seeing Crank tangled in the bushes to the side and me laughing on my knees.  I only realised how lucky I had been when turning to retrieve Crank.  Where I had landed in the soft peat there was now a large Tony shaped imprint, but just a foot back from this was a very unsympathetic slab of slate.  Had I been going a touch slower and fallen a touch shorter…

Despite the crash my enthusiasm was not dampened and the three of us, after a coffee and cake, took on the mighty black MBR trail which is a piecing together of other trails to create what is believed to be the best of all.  If nothing else, it was brutal in both technicality and required effort with some of the climbs setting our legs on fire, but my heart swelled to see Peter hitting rock gardens and bomb holes like a long term pro.

We arrived on the campsite close to 5pm and took the keys for the cabins.  The rest of the group, except for Baz who was expected a lot later, arrived and followed me to the pub.  Once Baz arrived it was pitch black on the campsite and I had already put down a few pints.  The groups gelled, excitement levels lifted and we all knew that Saturday was going to rock.

Saturday 27^th October – The Beast

We were up early.  Control freak that I am, I had equipped both cabins with breakfast stocks and before coming I had already cooked a batch of chilli for our dinner that night.  Full of coffee and nicotine, I loaded up the car and led the way back to the centre.

Trail name:Beast of Brenin
Centre:Coed Y Brenin
Distance:38.2km
Climbing:1015m
Time:3 – 6hrs

The Beast lived up to its name.  Starting off with a quick descent down rocking slabs of slate, it led us straight into the first climb which instantly divided the group.  It was steep, rocky and tight.  We were all gasping when we finally reached the top to regroup and regardless of bike, all of us expect Mark had suffered.  As with all climbs at trail centres, fortunately a climb is quickly repaid and The Beast had plenty of treasures to offer.

The vast array of surfaces, ranging from root ensnared rollercoasters to rocky, teeth chattering drops into oblivion kept us all in the zone.  Stone fly offs tested us, often pre-warning with a death sign did no more than to encourage us to go faster and harder.  Jim and Milo, slow on the climbs, proved untouchable on the descents and no matter how hard I tried to hold their wheel it was impossible.

We polished off the Adam & Eve rhythm section, whipped the rear wheel through the turns and twists of the Serpent’s tail and for each of these sections suffered a gruelling climb.  The Serpent’s tail took us up into the forest and at points, due to roots and gradient, I found Crank at a standstill.  Cunningham chuckled behind me, waiting for a foot to go down, but I am pleased to say it never did.

Almost halfway around The Beast we climbed on a road to a café.  The time of year made itself known as we sat down on a bench to eat our cake because the wind held a chill that cut straight through our layers.  For this reason more than anything else, we rushed the stop as much as was possible when 10 people ordering coffee and food, although we did have an opportunity to gauge how people were doing.

Dan was finding the technicality of the trails a little daunting, as was Mark, but Mark was loving the climbs.  Paul was loving trying to catch Mark up the climbs whereas Jim and Milo (and me) were loving the descents the climbs rewarded us with.  Wellsy and Cunningham, evenly matched and both very comfortable on their bikes, seemed to take everything in their stride and Peter, the least experienced, was a beaming bundle of smiles that had proved his reserved ran very, very deep.  Baz was the big surprise for me as his legs were not holding out too well (after weddings and life had denied him any training prior to coming) and the Beast was after his soul.

A little longer after any of us really had wanted to wait, we returned to the trail proper.  After much of the same as we had enjoyed before the café we then came to a crossroad in both literal and metaphorical sense.  A short ride down the hill led to the start of the Adam’s Family section which heralded the beginning of the end of the Beast.  Up the hill was a loop that led to the same place, but made up a good 8 of the 38 mile trail and took the riders to the highest point.

With hindsight I have to say that Baz, Milo, Peter and Dan took the better option down the hill as the extra miles proved to be no more than fire-roads.  This meant we completed it quickly and re-joined the rest of the group, but aside from knowing we had completed the full Beast in terms of experience that section was pretty bland.   

The Adams Family certainly made up for it.  The Lurch stone slab corkscrew in wet conditions certainly got the blood pumping and we passed through Uncle Fester like a rotten curry. The Pink Heifer and Big Dug trails linked up to bless us with almost 3 miles of unbroken single track weaving between majestic Douglas Firs that blotted out the sky.   

The final section was a short, sharp climb and then a left hand turn over an incredibly short section called glide.  We all took it, but did not all survive.  Paul was slammed into the ground and carried his bike back to the car afterwards – therefore not defeating the Beast at the final stage.  Those that missed the bland fire roads were also denied the right to claim they had defeated the beast, but those of us who had truly earned it over the rooted web that made up Glide.  The holes between the roots were like chasms waiting to bite a wheel and once over this we flew (because brakes prior to this would have brought about our demise) under a low bridge and out onto the end of the trail.

Chilli that night was well received and we drank like men newly introduced to the wonders of alcohol.  I was also presented with a home cooked birthday cake, maybe slightly against other peoples taste, but an absolute chuckle for me. 

With a brief jaunt to the pub, but quickly realising that most people would prefer to stay in bed, we returned to the huts and the hard core contingent drank me into a new day, with push-up displays from Paul, sharing of Go-Pro footage from Milo and Jim, hand-stand push up demonstrations from me and a long chat with Wellsy about the Christchurch earthquake and randomly how smoking was almost like taking EPO. 

The next day we departed out cabins with sore heads and headed for the centre again.  Cars had been packed as we would be disbanding at midday to our various locations all over the country – Nottingham, Bristol, Cumbria, Godalming, Farnham, Bedford and Northants.  The rain also decided to make a show, but we still managed to fit in another run of the Minotaur and the Red Coche.

Peter was full of beans and even went off for a second run of the Minotaur while some of us abandoned ridding in preference for showers in the centre followed by coffee, although Baz had attempted to lure me down Glide for a final time before this decision was made.  Had it not been hammering it down I might even had said yes…