Things started to go wrong during the TP recce which, given the potential mileage that the weekend held, I attempted to do on a bike rather than on foot. The Thames Path is flat, but unfortunately there are still a lot of stiles/ gates to negotiate and plenty of stretches which ban bikes completely. It took me ages to get the 16 mile route done, particularly as LOCOG have shut off the Dorney Lake path whilst they make changes to the area in preparation for the Olympic rowing events which will be held there. It looks like they will be done before the race so hopefully no re-route will be necessary on the day.
Anyway by the time I got back to Windsor I was late so I stepped on the bike and gave it some to get back to the car parked a couple of miles away. As I crested a bump in the road I felt the front wheel slip right, underneath the bike and before I knew it had landed on the road with that sickening smack on the outside of my left knee and elbow, before flipping on to my back and sliding along the road with the grinding sound of metal on pavement. At some point during that slide my left leg got trapped inside the frame and with the bike traveling in the opposite direction, my left knee was wrenched out of place. I lay on the ground for about 3 or 4 minutes just trying to breathe. After I did a check I found nothing obviously broken but I was sweating profusely from the pain in my leg and was pretty sure I had done a fair amount of damage to the bike. Typically, people in cars just ignored the fact that a cyclist was laying flat on the ground with the bike in a mangled mess about 15 feet away, so eventually I got up, straightened out the handlebars, took off the brakes and pushed the bike the mile or so back to the car.
By the time I had got home my leg had seized pretty badly but wasn't too painful.
I woke up on Saturday and drove down to help Henk and the crew set up for the long weekend ahead. In this it's 6th year, Henk again had the 50, 100 and midnight 30 mile courses going and as usual had everything well in hand by the time I arrived with a few extra chairs and a box of food and gels. He even had time to stroll the car park with a coffee admiring the pre race rituals of the 120 odd starters. I had a chance to chat to Paul Navesey who I've helped at a couple of races with before and mentioned to him that the 50 mile record was well within reach if he could stay strong. He almost did....
Just before the 12 noon kick off Robbie Britton, winner of our inaugural NDW100 turned up wearing his finishers shirt (nice) so he and I set off together letting a dozen or so runners get ahead. I had no idea whether I'd be turning around inside a mile and hobbling back to the start but I thought I'd enjoy it while I could. Straight away the downhills hurt but there is enough short sharp elevation change at Caesars that I got away without battering it too long in any one stretch. We cruised around to Dicks aid station at mile 5ish said hi and pushed back on the start finish. Before we came in I saw Paul headed back out 2 miles up inside 11 miles and he looked like he was flying. I couldn't believe even at our benign pace that he'd got that much ground on us but he looked ok so I crossed my fingers for him. Lap 1: 1:33. Lap 2 was uneventful. We continued the pattern and came in around 3:16 so still under 10 mins per mile for the first 20 with around 1500 feet of gain per lap. Slow for a 50, very good for a 100 ie. Robbie. Lap 3 was still plain sailing but my knee began to play up and the ibuprofen from lap 1 had worn off. Rookie error. We got back in around 5:40 and bumped into Drew who had come down to support for a while. I grabbed my headlamp and chatted to him about 'the smart man dropping at this point' but to be honest with 20 miles left to go I figured if nothing else I'd just walk around chatting to people until the end.... which is pretty much what I did. I discovered here that Paul had dropped at 30 after falling earlier in the day. He will be back to take it next year. I let Robbie go after the second steep descent on the open heathland as my knee just couldn't take it any more. Whether the pain was detracting from my muscles, or I genuinely was fine, my legs didn't hurt and I had loads of energy (Gu's every 40 minutes - genius) so I did my bit encouraging other runners I came across to keep moving and stay strong as the light began to fade. I met one guy who was canning it at the next aid station but who eventually finished so good job. Final lap was dark so I sped up as much as I could to get back in half reasonable time and ended up coming across Keith Godden so we ran in the last 4 or 5 miles together which was great. 10:29, 27 minutes slower than the first 50 miles of my 100 there last year!!!
Needless to say by the time I'd hung around and helped and driven home (4am) I wasn't in the mood for Greensands. My knee was shot and actually since then it's been extremely inflamed making it painful to walk. I think the bruising should subside to leave just an inflamed ITB but fingers crossed that's what it is.....
Icing on the cake? I pulled my front tooth out again tearing the top off of a gel pack with my teetch at mile 22. Busted knee, busted bike, missing tooth. Loved every minute of it!!!!
I woke up on Saturday and drove down to help Henk and the crew set up for the long weekend ahead. In this it's 6th year, Henk again had the 50, 100 and midnight 30 mile courses going and as usual had everything well in hand by the time I arrived with a few extra chairs and a box of food and gels. He even had time to stroll the car park with a coffee admiring the pre race rituals of the 120 odd starters. I had a chance to chat to Paul Navesey who I've helped at a couple of races with before and mentioned to him that the 50 mile record was well within reach if he could stay strong. He almost did....
Just before the 12 noon kick off Robbie Britton, winner of our inaugural NDW100 turned up wearing his finishers shirt (nice) so he and I set off together letting a dozen or so runners get ahead. I had no idea whether I'd be turning around inside a mile and hobbling back to the start but I thought I'd enjoy it while I could. Straight away the downhills hurt but there is enough short sharp elevation change at Caesars that I got away without battering it too long in any one stretch. We cruised around to Dicks aid station at mile 5ish said hi and pushed back on the start finish. Before we came in I saw Paul headed back out 2 miles up inside 11 miles and he looked like he was flying. I couldn't believe even at our benign pace that he'd got that much ground on us but he looked ok so I crossed my fingers for him. Lap 1: 1:33. Lap 2 was uneventful. We continued the pattern and came in around 3:16 so still under 10 mins per mile for the first 20 with around 1500 feet of gain per lap. Slow for a 50, very good for a 100 ie. Robbie. Lap 3 was still plain sailing but my knee began to play up and the ibuprofen from lap 1 had worn off. Rookie error. We got back in around 5:40 and bumped into Drew who had come down to support for a while. I grabbed my headlamp and chatted to him about 'the smart man dropping at this point' but to be honest with 20 miles left to go I figured if nothing else I'd just walk around chatting to people until the end.... which is pretty much what I did. I discovered here that Paul had dropped at 30 after falling earlier in the day. He will be back to take it next year. I let Robbie go after the second steep descent on the open heathland as my knee just couldn't take it any more. Whether the pain was detracting from my muscles, or I genuinely was fine, my legs didn't hurt and I had loads of energy (Gu's every 40 minutes - genius) so I did my bit encouraging other runners I came across to keep moving and stay strong as the light began to fade. I met one guy who was canning it at the next aid station but who eventually finished so good job. Final lap was dark so I sped up as much as I could to get back in half reasonable time and ended up coming across Keith Godden so we ran in the last 4 or 5 miles together which was great. 10:29, 27 minutes slower than the first 50 miles of my 100 there last year!!!
Needless to say by the time I'd hung around and helped and driven home (4am) I wasn't in the mood for Greensands. My knee was shot and actually since then it's been extremely inflamed making it painful to walk. I think the bruising should subside to leave just an inflamed ITB but fingers crossed that's what it is.....
Icing on the cake? I pulled my front tooth out again tearing the top off of a gel pack with my teetch at mile 22. Busted knee, busted bike, missing tooth. Loved every minute of it!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment