I must admit I’ve been looking at the winning times in Fun and Open and thinking it would be easier than getting a kicking in Grand Vet, but it could also be sandbagging, and I would rather eat my own pubes than be called a sandbagger.

After a few races I’ve worked out I need a few long fire road climbs so I can put some time into the riders who are a bit less fit, but have more skillz, so they dont catch me on the twisty bits. Where can you find these -are they what is called ‘Marathon XC’?

I’ve seen the Scott one in Oxford in late May but that looks like a sportive for mountain bikes, are there any that are proper races?

No I’m not – are you being unnecessarily sensitive? 😛

I can’t tell if they are timed and a race, like a time trial, or timed and not a race, like a sportive. The website blurb seems to suggest the latter, but I only looked them up because the word on here suggested they were races.

@Kryton, without any intention of being offensive, the scott marathons are sportives for MTB not races, its even in their faq page:

Thats not to say there’s not some seriously quick riders treating them as unofficial races, but you could say the same about a lot of road sportives too.
edit: beaten to it

Somewhere around 21st/22nd I think. Pretty pleased with that tbh, I’m just glad to have finished an elite national where nothing went wrong.
I surprised myself off the start, really enjoyed getting the elbows out and moved up a fair few places. Struggled a bit up the hills during the first half of the race, but felt strong over the top flatter bits. Got into it a bit more for the second half and caught a few people, and just about held off a couple of late surgers.
Literally everything hurt at the end – eyes, back, hands, arse, the whole lot. I ended up getting cramp and falling over in a service station car park on the way back!

Next up the Hadleigh international, hopefully I’ll be able to pick up some UCI points.

My apologies Winterfold, I stand corrected.

But we do mostly accept that a certain percentage of riders will treat it exactly like a race and push as hard as possible… it’s one of them very grey areas where they’re not races mostly because of insurance purposes.

I’m feeling the same despite having only evidence that I wasnt as good as I hoped on events I havent trained for 😀

My XCO results are up 8 placs in Rd 1, “normal” in Rd 2 feeling a lack of legs then immediately having the lurgy the day after so could have been ill. I didn’t train for Marathons but didn’t do well in Builth – then again I trained specifically for XCO, am not a climber and with all that the HT was the wrong bike. I rode a solo Marathon distance yesterday on the Anthem albeit “flat” much more comfortably.

I haven’t done well in TT’s being bottom third of the Tablesl, and recently flunked a 20min FTP test before yet again being immediately ill so not sure if affected by illness.

I’m just having and hopefully recovering from a mild chest infection so I’m hoping I don’t have an excuse for Saturdays race and can get an accurate feel for how fit I am or not. Time will tell.

The next Scott is largely on the Ridgeway. How do the race contingent treat horses and walkers with dogs? I was on it yesterday. To be polite and safe I had to stop or slow to walking pace innumerable times.

I think you’ll find last place was somewhere around 40th. I’m not getting all pissy, but I worked bloody hard to get halfway up the field!

It’s the same when i was watching the Roadies at Thruxton recently with CH racing in Cat4…. the Cat1 guys were just insanely fast, it was a whole different style of racing too, not just the speed, but the tactics, attacks, sprinting off the front, or even needing to sprint flat out mid-lap just to hold a space…

there’s racing and there’s RACING !

they’re the best bits…

Kryton57 – Member
My apologies Winterfold, I stand corrected.

No worries – no need to apologise but thanks anyway

So it’s socially acceptable to go to one of these and go as hard as you can, I doubt I’ll be troubling the potential ‘winners’ but I don’t want to upset anyone’s nice day out either.

If any part of the course is a public road then that would prevent the organisers putting the times in fastest-slowest order.

ferrals, you were looking good as well, sorry I never said hello but did cheer you on!

Cheers for the cheer Iain! Well done on your result.

On reflection, while initially disappointed in my result I’m not that fussed, everyone has an off day and I do think I’m getting up to speed again technically. I knew it wasn’t going to be great on the first lap when i had no energy on that little power climb after the first a/b split. I think I just didnt get enough energy in pre- race and over relied on gels – hence the last lap vom swallowing.

Whilst I’m happy to be within top 10 in the Sport cat, it’s still very much a million miles away from a reasonable Expert performance and as for Elite…. I take my hat off to you guys.

Keep getting these results and you’ll be up in the experts next year!

Not enough pics on this thread! here’s one of me from Sat:

Bit gutted I’m not going to make either of the northern nationals. Done lots of races at the showground where the last race is though so will be on familiar territory for that one as its close to home.

@Weeksy, I think the ramapage is a winter series? could try cyclocross – theres a good kids scene in that

Loving the photo updates! Havent seen any from my last race yet.

Meant to racing tomorrow in what was supposed to be an important race for me, but suffering from a major lack of mojo right now. Three hour drive there, shite weather, family are a little under the weather, but I’m feeling a little over trained. I need to kick myself into gear over the next 12 hours.

Good luck to everyone else pinning a number on this weekend.

Cracking pic!

Nice work guys.

I missed my Saturday marathon distance event and have the second race in the regional XC series tomorrow instead.

Feeling much more motivated after a couple of easier days so let’s hope that I can repeat my 5th place, or better, from round one.

Nice pic Kryton, I’d completely forgotten about Beastway, I’ll definitely be down for the later ones.

Next Sunday, I will be racing against, among others, Manuel Fumic, Anton Cooper, Maxime Marrotte, Sergei Manticon Guitierrez and Grant Ferguson 😯

Helpfully there’s UCI points for the top 40 and there’s only 38 entered.

Well done Steve that’s an epic result! What sort of time did you do that in?

Couple of questions:
Anyone any idea why the last national results aren’t up on roots and rain? I have a feelin it might be because they aren’t as third party friendly in display as when it was timelaps.

Also, I seem to have totally lost the ability to recover this year. For example, after Wasing, last week was an easy week due to the amount of work I had on so 20 miniute spin on Sunday, and then commuting at a moderate steady pace (15km each way, flat, about 1/2hr) Tues and Thurs. Aimed to do a hill climb session on Saturday but sacked it off to mess around after 3 3 min reps up a fire road and 3 2min reps up a technical singltrack, just over an hour riding. No riding Sun or Mon, commuting into work this morning and my legs are feelinh really painful. Any ideas how to promote recovery? It’s getting annoying as I feel I can’t keep up a good level of riding, let alone interval training. THe only thing I can think is as I’m more time constrained this year I’m not doin enough (any) foam rolling whereas last year I’d do it 1-2 times a week

My reading was that volume in training gives a base that assists interval training later on. If you’ve had to sacrifice volume for time constraints it might have an effect. The other thing is the level of intensity. I’m finding it hard to recover but it’s because I’m doing Z6 intervals and despite being not a very hard session from the point of view of TSS it’s very hard on the muscles.

Also be careful about ‘messing around’ I had hoped to do my Z6 intervals today but yesterday z2/3 was painful. Examined my 2hr MTB ride on Sunday – 17minutes over threshold power….