GBDURO20-Post ride Thoughts
images by @breakawaydigital
As I’m writing this I’m currently sat in a cafe in Fort Augustus in the Scottish Highlands about 1600km through the GBDivide route that GBDURO follows. Its now almost two days since I scratched from the event and my brain has only really been working for half of that. So I thought that I would get some of my initial post event thoughts down on "paper" Whilst I haven't fully had time to digest everything yet my head is full of emotions so recording them now cant be a bad thing.
GBDURO was always a huge target for me, it's probably the closest thing as to what I would describe as my home race. Additionally, the fact that this year I had invested a huge amount of my time behind the scenes helping organising the event with The Racing Collective only further cemented it as my main goal for the season.
The weeks of preparation were certainly worth it and when I lined up on the start line I felt as prepared as I could ever be. Bike setup was perfect, nutrition spot on and I wouldn't have changed much about my equipment.
Although there were only 15 starters there were some big names on the list including fellow MASON teammates Josh Ibbet and Jason Black as well as ex-pro rider and mountain man Svein Tuft. I wasn't too concerned by this by now and knew that I just had to ride my own race and stick to plan. That being to ride hard and stop infrequently, that’s how it worked for the first few hundred Km. I reached Bristol about 24 hours into the race having been stationary for less than an hour. I loaded up of overnight oats at the Clifton Suspension Bridge and headed on my way into Wales.
The first part of the Welsh leg was as tough as I remember yet it was eased a little this year by seeing a few familiar faces on the route cheering me on from a sociable distance. I was aware that I had a lead due to being the only rider to go through the first night, but I wasn’t checking the tracker more than once a day so had no idea how long it was so pushed on regardless. There were some predictably tricky sections in Wales namely the Windy Gap as well as some steep road climbs such as Bwlch y Groes. Yet, it was the some of the more unassuming parts which got me such as the endless miles of forestry tracks through mid Wales or the gravel climb just after Bala. Whilst there were some lows, mainly spirits were high and I was feeling strong, and well rested on the 2 hours of sleep that I treated myself to on night two.
After what seemed like much longer than 36 hours I was out of Wales and heading towards Manchester. My intention was to ride until around 2am get a couple more hours sleep and then get to Manchester before rush hour in the morning. I wasn't feeling overly sleepy but my legs were certainly feeling it as I was struggling to generate enough heat to stay warm on the flatlands of Cheshire so When I spotted a decent bivvy spot half an hour early it was a no brainer.
Two and a half hours of sleep I felt like a new man and was smashing the miles out to Manchester where at least 5 dotwatchers greeted me on the way in. It was quite surreal riding through a large city like that but without stopping. Last year I had been building cravings and shopping lists in my mind that I would be able to fulfil when I arrived yet there was none of that this year, maybe due to the fact that I knew that I wasn't able to resupply I knew I had to be happy with my meal plans so never gave myself that option. It was strangely liberating for sure.
I checked the tracker and saw that I had a four to five hour lead to Josh who was about the same distance to Jason. This was pretty tight for my liking especially as Josh would have slept about 6 hours more than me at this point so I pushed on hard through the Pennines, maybe it was due to the tailwind or just the mood I was in but there were not quite as bad as I remember which I think lulled me into a false sense on security when it came to the Yorkshire Dales.
Nearing the end of day four now I was pleased that I was holding my lead and the strong cross-tailwind I saw as an asset. Crossing the Dales was tough but only really got serious climbing up out of the Ribble valley over the top where the wind which has now so severe that it was hard to stay on the bike without being blown off or even hold gates open. Still no biggie. The problem came when it started raining, this was just when I was starting to drop down a 20km steady road descent. Soon after I was soaked through and due to the wind,
speed and being so exhausted that I couldn’t even get my HR above 100 meant that i was getting very cold very quickly, to add to things the sun was setting and the rain, lightning and wind wasn’t easing up as I had hoped it would when i dropped down.
When I started shivering uncontrollably on the bike it became clear that I had to find some shelter and get warm and dry then take things from there. A bridge proved to be the only option for me due to almost everything else being excluded in the rules but as we were able to go under the bridge whilst riding then surely it must be OK to stop there.
The level of cold that i was was indescribable, I was shaking uncontrollably and the it was aching right down to the core,.I knew that this wasn’t safe at all so, priorities quickly changed from trying to win the race to staying safe so I whipped of all of my wet kit, put on my dry fleece and got in my sleeping bag. I knew that getting some hot food in would be key so the jetboil was fired up and meals re-hydrated these were stuffed inside my sleeping bag with me for me to cuddle all night as I fell asleep soon after without getting the chance to eat them.
The night was long and cold and I drifted in and out of things before properly waking up at 5am, a full seven hours after I had bedded down. Checking the tracker I saw that my lead on Josh was almost gone just like that.
Dragging myself out of the relative warmth of the sleeping bag and putting the wet kit on again was mentally excruciating but I had convinced myself that I managed to get out there and cycling again then all would be well, I had slept for 7 hours after all so I should have been fresh right? It really didnt take long for me to realise that this wasn’t the case, my legs were not working and after about an hour of riding i found myself in another shivery heap being sick at the side of the road.
The time once again came to bivvy down, try to recover and reassess. I slept in someones drive for the whole morning and let Josh ride right past me, this didn’t even bother me at this point as I was feeling so down. After a good sleep I lay in my bivvy for two hours fighting the internal conflict: on one hand I had been working so hard towards this event for what felt like a whole year and wanted to finish so badly, not winning was now inconsequential to me but proving the naysayers wrong was important. Yet I had to balance this with the fact that I was clearly hypothermic last night and that I was "lucky" that if things were to have gone downhill further then I could have bailed into a pub/house/bnb/hospital fairly easily whereas ahead there was no easy escape and that Mountain Rescue would be needed to get me out of a potentially life threatening situation.
The biggest demon that was plaguing me however was the unknowing whether I was just convincing myself that it was unsafe so that I could take the easy way out. My sleep and warmth deprives brain was going through this over and over again yet seemingly making no progress.
A decision was finally made that I would make a move so warm dry kit off and cold wet clothes back on. Time to get the wheels rolling again. The hope was that life would spring back into my legs once they were turning. Almost predictably however this was not the case and after 10 mins of riding at 10kph on the flat with an HR below 100 but perceived effort maxed out i was on the floor again.
It was now clear that my body was just not able to recover from the deep set cold when it was already wrecked from the days preceding it. This is when the decision was made to scratch and I emailed myself to make it final. Luckily, there were a couple of dotwatchers nearby who kindly offered to put me up for the night and expedite my recovery, i’m sure that I wouldn't be quite so comfortable now if it were not for them.
So as I am sat here at the side of the road waiting to cheer Josh as he comes past I think about what I have learned from the event and what I cant take forward with me. Whilst it is still early days and i’m sure that many things will become clearer there are a few points that have already been revealed.
Firstly, self-sufficiency is possible, yes I did pull out when if I had been able to get into a hotel/pub then I may not have but I confident that people will finish and maybe I could have packed smarter with more warm kit or a tent. Nevertheless, I was never hungry or craving food that I didn’t have acess to, with the exception to the last night I wasn’t even tempted to seek refuge in a building or find a bed for the night and the fully loaded bike was really no issue, sure you climbed slower but it still handled perfectly.
Secondly, If you want to win races like these you really do need to push yourself physically and mentally and that does involve taking risks. One could argue that I went out too hard and that If I had been less exhausted then the cold wouldn’t have got to me so much. You would probably be right but I don’t think that I would have had a chance of winning should I have ridden like that. It wasn’t quite an all or nothing mentality I would have loves to have finished even if I had been off the pace for the win but at the time and even now attempting that seemed impossible and irresponsible.
And finally, I was overwhelmed by the moral support that I was given along the way dozens of people came out to cheer me on and all remained socially distant and responsible thank you to everyone it was a real emotional boost anytime I saw anyone.
When thinking about the event and whether I think that it was all worth it and if I had any regret the honest answer is that whilst I do have a deep feeling of disappointment and unfufillment currently, I still got to race my bike over 1000km across my home turf and push my body to its absolute limit. Hopefully this may be one event that I can look back on without a pair of rose tinted glasses so that when I think about events in the future I can fully appreciate one more of the many possible outcomes that can realised during an ultra event.
Onward and upwards, there will always be more races!!
