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Ha ha too right! Yesterday I didn't want to go near a Marathon again, today I'm planning on doing this one better next year 😀
I also need to work on my mental state/chimp whatever you want to call it. I'm investing too much into racing not be in the frame of mind to enjoy it/make a go of it once I'm there.
Can we stage a group intervention for Kryten? I keep banging on about how he needs to work on his technical skills more than his strength but he won't listen! He's losing more time on the downhills than the ups yet he has no time allocated to improving this weakness in his weekly schedule. His reply to my suggesting that he should push himself into becoming a better bike handler and maybe try some enduro's to work on his skills was: "he'd rather not as technical wasn't his strength".
Sorry for dropping this on you Steve. It's a pretty small community on this thread and we all know you quite well so I hope you don't mind my impertinence. Hoping you'll see the light and come smash up some trails with us this winter after you've fitted a dropper and done a couple of skills courses to get comfy with drops.
It wasn't that bad!
The only DH I walked was the first section which was full of a) other riders walking or b) people banging down beside them a couple of inches a way from shoving them over the side and c) people falling off. I have an important race next week I didn't want to be broken.
I've also ridden ALL A lines this year except the jump on the National at Phoenix that broke a few people and bikes.
I went passed plenty on others, and got a few "well done" as I cleared some past walking riders. Like I said, it was my head that got me down, the final nail being an inability to deal with the constant unclipping riding in the ruts above Hope. Have a look at Paddy's Video in the Hope Marathon thread, he does the same on several occasion so its not just me.
And as I said, I hate walking during an event and don't see the point of carrying a bike up a 20 minute climb. There's no challenge other than today's effort to calm down my blisters, I'd rather ride a route where I could stay on the bike - not withstanding you'd have had to be in the first 10 riders to have ridden Jacobs Ladder, I wasn't that far back - 50 riders? - at that point - I could see Nick & co above me. But as soon as once person walks....
Yeah but there's getting down stuff and getting down it fast! I'm pretty naff at descending but do practice it regularly. Plan to really tackle it full on next year. I'm loosing massive handfuls of time to the leaders and you are worse than me. Makes sense if you're training your arse off to get fitter that you devote equal time to getting faster doesn't it?
I don't disagree with the practise. I'd be happy to go back on a Saturday trip up with some Camping at Hope/Edale in the middle - appreciate you're CX racing though.
FWIW I know its not the same as the peaks but I've plenty of Hadleigh/Peaslake/Swinley sessions this year. Pretty much one every other weekend.
Aston XC loop is particularly good for a combined intervals and skills session. Very steep up and down.
Thanks ADSH, not far from me either, I'll give it a go in the next couple of weeks.
Well my last planned race of the season didn't go so well. The central series has actually been really quite good. The last round was a great fun course, in the dry it had almost 20cm of loan in places which made it great fun! Give them a try next year.
My race? Well, asthma defeated me again. I rode 4 laps and strugged every pedal stroke. Races are hard enough without having to struggle to breath. That's me done. Roll on 2019 and perhaps some big life changes.
Bugger, sorry to hear that Si. Maybe try to get some nice asthma medication while you'd get it free 😜
Pretty bad sensations for me today, but I think I could have been on an absolute flyer and still have got the same result (2nd elite/expert). Similar to the cross race yesterday, one super fast bloke (small Tulett yesterday, Jason Bouttell today) shooting off and leaving the rest of us to fight it out for 2nd. Seems like the cross race took more out of me than I'd thought, so once Jason was out of sight I just rode around without going very quickly. Got a good gap over third though, so can't have been going as slowly as I felt.
Bad for me too. I’d had swollen glands on Monday / Tuesday, all of this weeks intervals felt tough and I shortened yesterday’s pre race because my legs felt tired.
Rode MSG at Laindon hills today, tough little course with lots of short steep climbs. Started ok going into the woods top ten but at the end of the first lap my energy disappeared into a cavernous pit. I had nothing at all in my legs, and laps 4,5,6 went by with me feeling like I wanted to puke at any moment. I didn’t give up but just rolled around in an effort to try to keep my second row gridding for 2019 with some sort of points. Ended up 25 of 30, lapped twice 🙁
All done for the season also. Looking forward to riding around without targets and efforts for a few weeks.