Friday night:
The weather this evening couldn't make up it's mind so I have packed both my road bike and my TT bike.
This is the second year in a row I have done the Ming the Merciless race. I did the short run - short bike race in 2012 and accidentally won it, but never tried the long race which all of the "real" racers take part in. Also never done a multi-sport race of anywhere near this distance before. And haven't run this far on a single run since Edinburgh Marathon in May 2011. A quick check in the training diary suggests I have only ever run more than 13 miles 10 times in my entire life, and have never even considered getting on the bike afterwards.
On the smaller side of the other issues that might come up. I haven't really gotten used to the TT bike yet, and never really ridden it hard, or with the TT hat, or over a real hill.
Saturday morning:
I got up in plenty of time to get to the race. I didn't have anyone to go with me so I aimed to cut it fairly close for arriving, aiming to be there about half an hour before the race. Unfortunately I got re-routed by some roadworks before I was even out of Dyce, and after that got stuck in a huge traffic jam at Thainstone. When I actually arrived it was 8 minutes till start time and the race-briefing was well underway. I had to sneak in at the back to register, then sneak back out to try and set up for transition in a rush.
Run:
I was quite lucky to find a couple of friends at the start. One of whom runs pretty much at my pace. So we set of for the first couple of miles together and pretty much stayed within 10 yards of each other all the way to about 9 miles.
Garmin decided to play games so I don't have measures of distance or time, or a proper track of how I ran. The route is basically a nasty 7 mile uphill, then a 7 mile downhill. At the top I was sitting in tenth place overall. Going much better than I expected. My friend started getting away from me on the steeper descents though. Once upon a time that would have annoyed me, as descending used to be my speciality and even serious hill runners wouldn't make distance on me during downhill sections. For today I was happy enough to still be running comfortably so just tried to settle in and keep ticking along. I started to struggle when the route turned back uphill at mile 11 and was pretty much shuffling from there to the end of the run with empty legs. It is a nasty hilly course, worth more in real terms than the pure distance. Was finished in about 2 hours. Will see what the results say if/when they come out. Glad to get such a long run in though. Need to start getting regular runs this length in.
Transition:
Transition was a complete mess. Partly because I hadn't had time to set up properly, but mostly because the last few miles of the run had drained me completely and my brain was completely switched off and couldn't actively make any useful decisions. I just put biking clothes on as I reached them rather than deciding if I actually needed them or not. Fortunately, I was awake enough to reset Garmin so I would get a proper bike track. And I did have a flapjack and a decent drink of water.
I also had a thought about throwing in the towel. I could have gone home happy enough having completed the long run. I decided to carry on in the hope that I would ease off once I got on the bike.
Bike:
I decided to stick with the TT bike as it looked like the sun was going to stay out. This was the right decision in terms of weather. There was a little spit of rain the last couple of miles but nothing serious. However, it was the wrong choice of bike overall. The fiddling I did on Thursday means my position is now comfortable on the turbo, but apparently nowhere else. Even on the flat it wasn't really comfortable to be down on the tribars. The descents were a bit better but then they were so twisty I had to keep getting up to cover the brakes. The climbs were horrible, and there were a lot of them.
The bad bike position was hurting my back so I had a few stops to try and stretch it out. I also don't like the combination of carbon bike and the aero helmet. Bike makes a lot of air noise and helmet blocks traffic noise. Sounds like there is always a car behind me, which then makes it hard to tell when there really is a car behind me. Tempted to modify the helmet (i.e. drill ear holes in it). As it is only in the cosmetic fairing and not in the helmet itself I think this would be legal but need to get a check on the rules.
Didn't refuel enough for such a long event. only the flapjack at the end of the run and a couple of gels on the bike. Barely drank enough either, had a couple of water stops at fuel stations, should have made sure my bike bottle was full instead of 60-70%, and with more than just water. The aero bottle is going to be too small for Aberfeldy, will have to figure that out. Don't think a standard bottle cage will fit and even then there is only space for a single bottle.
Sunday morning:
Not loving the stairs today. And looks like I did a pretty poor job with the suntan cream again. Going to take the TT bike out again this morning just for an easy roll to finish out my miles for the week, and try and ease off my legs. Have put the settings back to where it was on Wednesday night.
Lots of good lessons learned for Aberfeldy.
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