Misadventure Racing: Open5 Askham
One more for the monthly Misadventure Racing series, and one more to go after this. Very unusually, there was no pre-race paddling this time round. My sincerest apologies to both my readers, and I promise to get back to normal shonky form for next month.
I'd love to say that the latest Open 5 from Askham continued my triumphant (ahem...) re-entry back into the world of Adventure Racing, but knowing the state of my racing, I don't think I'll ever fool anyone into thinking the triumph is on the menu. This minor resurrection has been about the same as my standard racing day; less sudden dramatic fanfare and leap through the curtain, more slow, sweaty, sweary plod from the back of the auditorium to the stage. Hey ho.
I like my planning and logistics, but frankly the planning for this one was a bit shaky. I'd been asked to help out on the Mighty Deerstalker trail run/obstacle course event the night before the Open 5, and had said 'yes' having not checked the dates properly, thereby committing myself to an 'interesting' amount of travelling over the weekend. Since I'd landed myself in the s**t, I decided the best thing to do was to drag a few willingidiots friends in there with me, so roped three friends in to help me out with the Saturday night. I'd also failed to string it together as being the weekend after the National Student Rodeo, and obviously hadn't adequately accommodated for the contagion impacts of being around 1,000 students for a weekend, so had spent the week before being sneezy, snotty, coughy, shivery and several other lesser Dwarves. Sweary was definitely in there as well.
Anyhow, come the weekend itself and I had Sean and Ruth travelling up with me from Leeds and Rachel joining us from Edinburgh later on, so we were fully staffed. The Leeds trio headed up to my folks place in the Lakes on Friday and after a nice meal, a decent night's kip and a lie-in, Thunderbird 2 was go again and headed northbound up the M74. A quick briefing with Stu the Race Director, chats with a few old friends, and we were free to wander, so we went and stocked up on food and coffee before headed back to the main briefing and then filed as two pairs out to our assigned locations on opposite sides of the course: Sean and Ruth got the skinnies on Caddon Bank, Rach and I the roped descent on the back of Pirn Craig; Sean and Ruth were finished by half past eight, Rach and I were in place until the best part of 11pm. Joy!
Deerstalker duty done, the three of us skedaddled back to the Lakes, knowing that we'd be on an early start on Sunday morning. As typically happens when you really fancy an easy drive, it all went a bit wrong. Setting the sat nav to alleviate the amount of mental processing required led to it taking us on the 'fastest' route, over the tops via Tweedsmuir and the Devil's Beef Tub and down to Moffatt. That might well be the fastest route on a fine, clear day, but on a dark, foggy night, when visibility's down to 20 yards max, it gets a little bit slower. Eventually we got to the motorway, got back to Carlisle, then back home at 1:20am, just time for a handful of hours sleep before getting up to go race.
We got through to Askham, having taken a minor diversion due to closed roads and bridges after the last bout of flooding in Cumbria, dumped the car and wandered towards registration, only to be asked to move it straight away. I'd left Sean the keys so a bit of sign language later and the car was duly moved while I went and signed my life for the next 5hrs away. After a quick chat with Joe on porridge duty and a ramble out to work out where the hell the car and all of my kit was, I started getting sorted out and ready to roll out, grabbing food and drinks bottles and working out, well, what to ride.
The other bit of lax planning had been on bike choice and bike maintenance. I've just finished building up a new full-suss 29er, a Rocky Mountain Element, which was just about ready to go, but with the post-NSR lurghi I hadn't had a chance to actually have a shake-out ride and check everything was done up and functioning properly. My other bike, my On-One Scandal hardtail 29er was theoretically good to go, but hadn't been ridden or even cleaned and re-lubed since the snowy day out up at Blanchland, so it was a split decision of new-and-shiny-but-untested vs older-and-true-but-probably-squeaky. I'd thrown both onto the roofrack just in case, thinking I might have done a short ride on the new one on Saturday, but no joy. I pulled both down to sort out - I'd need to swap my map board mount and saddle pack over if I was using the new one anyway - and after a quick fidget with a slightly-in-need-of-a-bleed rear brake and some extra air in the shock and forks, I opted for the Rocky.
Bike - http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/1386566967
The start was a short ride from the car, all uphill, so a nice little warmup. I hadn't looked at the map much before the start, and when I got to transition there were only a few minutes before the Solo riders start closed, so it was straight in, drop the transition bag, gloves on and ready to go. I opted to keep the same strategy as the Blanchland race, do a longer bike first then pick off a few run CPs with the time left, so up to the marshals and the normal start routine of picking up the points sheet, scribbling out the 'dummy' CPs and trying to configure a decent loop and I was off. First leg was the uphill struggle onto Askham Fell and over to the Cockpit, where James the event photographer managed to snap me looking, well, angry. No reason why, I was actually having a fairly nice day, I just look very unhappy to see him. Sorry about that James.
The big split decision from the Cockpit was whether to go for the 40 point CP up on Loadpot Hill, committing yourself to 5km slog and 1000ft of ascent up the old Roman Road of High Street, which I decided wasn't worth it for me and the way I was feeling. The descent may have been awesome but the climb would have done me over, so I turned off right and onto the descent down to Howtown, loving the rear suspension and soaking up the hazy sunlight. Stopped by one CP by a stream crossing to slurp down the remainder of my bottle and top it up from the stream - always a lovely feeling in spring - and then down more before climbing from Howtown round The Coombs to the new(er) church at Martindale. As I climbed, the lad behind me, who'd been with me for a little while, says "Are you going to 17?"... Erm, yes. I wouldn't be going this way if I wasn't... "Damn. I wasn't planning to. Serves me right for tailgating I guess." Serves you right for not reading your own flipping map, pal!
The payoff for climbing to Martindale was the blast down the zig-zags down The Hause, though I did it forwards and carefully, not backwards on one wheel. The tarmac spin back to Pooley Bridge was despatched fairly quickly having caught up with another racing friend, Roger, and we chatted our way back along the road before I dropped off the back climbing up to Celleron and back towards Askham. I'd been looking at the map and evaluating my time, and decided I would go a bit longer on the bike, having only been out about 2:30 on the first loop. There was another shorter route I could do, mainly on tarmac with a handful of bridleways, so I headed south for Helton, then up onto the fell again, dodging tourists and their dogs out for a walk, down a short bridleway then looping round Rough Hill and back towards Butterwick and Helton again, and back to Askham on the road. Bumped into Sean and Ruth sunning themselves with a coffee on a bench by Askham Stores having been for a walk up onto the fell. They started making me jealous with talk of steak pie, so I headed off to transition and get a wee wander on foot in myself.
One bit of preparation that had gone right was my transition bag, and the secret weapon therein. I may have attracted a couple of jealous glances as I sat down to changes my shoes and pulled out my still sealed, still hot enough insulated mug of coffee, followed by two pain au chocolat. A veritable feast mid-way through a race, and yet I was still only in transition six-and-a-half minutes, pretty swift for me.
Run - http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/1386570359
The run was a typical short ramble, a touch over 6km and four CPs, lollipop style, heading up onto the fell end first, then up over Heughscar Hill, back through a channel between two blocks of woodland and jogging steadily back down the track to the finish. I finished on 375 points, which knocks one of my first two races off the 'top 3 scores' Series table. The best news was no mechanical issues on the bike and no twinges of the calf, so it seems like that's healed up okay and I know how to bolt frames and forks and such together, which is nice. I evidently just need to now start getting the fitness back in, something I've been saying since the first race of the series back in November! The jog downhill at the end felt pretty good, and I'm always saying I need to get time back in on foot, so now with lighter nights I'm hoping to start trail running a little more. We'll see what happens come the last race of the series at Todmorden in a months time, the steep Calderdale valley sides are not going to be forgiving if I've not done a little bit of hill work I suspect...
I'd love to say that the latest Open 5 from Askham continued my triumphant (ahem...) re-entry back into the world of Adventure Racing, but knowing the state of my racing, I don't think I'll ever fool anyone into thinking the triumph is on the menu. This minor resurrection has been about the same as my standard racing day; less sudden dramatic fanfare and leap through the curtain, more slow, sweaty, sweary plod from the back of the auditorium to the stage. Hey ho.
I like my planning and logistics, but frankly the planning for this one was a bit shaky. I'd been asked to help out on the Mighty Deerstalker trail run/obstacle course event the night before the Open 5, and had said 'yes' having not checked the dates properly, thereby committing myself to an 'interesting' amount of travelling over the weekend. Since I'd landed myself in the s**t, I decided the best thing to do was to drag a few willing
Anyhow, come the weekend itself and I had Sean and Ruth travelling up with me from Leeds and Rachel joining us from Edinburgh later on, so we were fully staffed. The Leeds trio headed up to my folks place in the Lakes on Friday and after a nice meal, a decent night's kip and a lie-in, Thunderbird 2 was go again and headed northbound up the M74. A quick briefing with Stu the Race Director, chats with a few old friends, and we were free to wander, so we went and stocked up on food and coffee before headed back to the main briefing and then filed as two pairs out to our assigned locations on opposite sides of the course: Sean and Ruth got the skinnies on Caddon Bank, Rach and I the roped descent on the back of Pirn Craig; Sean and Ruth were finished by half past eight, Rach and I were in place until the best part of 11pm. Joy!
Deerstalker duty done, the three of us skedaddled back to the Lakes, knowing that we'd be on an early start on Sunday morning. As typically happens when you really fancy an easy drive, it all went a bit wrong. Setting the sat nav to alleviate the amount of mental processing required led to it taking us on the 'fastest' route, over the tops via Tweedsmuir and the Devil's Beef Tub and down to Moffatt. That might well be the fastest route on a fine, clear day, but on a dark, foggy night, when visibility's down to 20 yards max, it gets a little bit slower. Eventually we got to the motorway, got back to Carlisle, then back home at 1:20am, just time for a handful of hours sleep before getting up to go race.
We got through to Askham, having taken a minor diversion due to closed roads and bridges after the last bout of flooding in Cumbria, dumped the car and wandered towards registration, only to be asked to move it straight away. I'd left Sean the keys so a bit of sign language later and the car was duly moved while I went and signed my life for the next 5hrs away. After a quick chat with Joe on porridge duty and a ramble out to work out where the hell the car and all of my kit was, I started getting sorted out and ready to roll out, grabbing food and drinks bottles and working out, well, what to ride.
The other bit of lax planning had been on bike choice and bike maintenance. I've just finished building up a new full-suss 29er, a Rocky Mountain Element, which was just about ready to go, but with the post-NSR lurghi I hadn't had a chance to actually have a shake-out ride and check everything was done up and functioning properly. My other bike, my On-One Scandal hardtail 29er was theoretically good to go, but hadn't been ridden or even cleaned and re-lubed since the snowy day out up at Blanchland, so it was a split decision of new-and-shiny-but-untested vs older-and-true-but-probably-squeaky. I'd thrown both onto the roofrack just in case, thinking I might have done a short ride on the new one on Saturday, but no joy. I pulled both down to sort out - I'd need to swap my map board mount and saddle pack over if I was using the new one anyway - and after a quick fidget with a slightly-in-need-of-a-bleed rear brake and some extra air in the shock and forks, I opted for the Rocky.
Bike - http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/1386566967
The start was a short ride from the car, all uphill, so a nice little warmup. I hadn't looked at the map much before the start, and when I got to transition there were only a few minutes before the Solo riders start closed, so it was straight in, drop the transition bag, gloves on and ready to go. I opted to keep the same strategy as the Blanchland race, do a longer bike first then pick off a few run CPs with the time left, so up to the marshals and the normal start routine of picking up the points sheet, scribbling out the 'dummy' CPs and trying to configure a decent loop and I was off. First leg was the uphill struggle onto Askham Fell and over to the Cockpit, where James the event photographer managed to snap me looking, well, angry. No reason why, I was actually having a fairly nice day, I just look very unhappy to see him. Sorry about that James.
 |
| Angry Beard is Angry - Pic: James Kirby |
The big split decision from the Cockpit was whether to go for the 40 point CP up on Loadpot Hill, committing yourself to 5km slog and 1000ft of ascent up the old Roman Road of High Street, which I decided wasn't worth it for me and the way I was feeling. The descent may have been awesome but the climb would have done me over, so I turned off right and onto the descent down to Howtown, loving the rear suspension and soaking up the hazy sunlight. Stopped by one CP by a stream crossing to slurp down the remainder of my bottle and top it up from the stream - always a lovely feeling in spring - and then down more before climbing from Howtown round The Coombs to the new(er) church at Martindale. As I climbed, the lad behind me, who'd been with me for a little while, says "Are you going to 17?"... Erm, yes. I wouldn't be going this way if I wasn't... "Damn. I wasn't planning to. Serves me right for tailgating I guess." Serves you right for not reading your own flipping map, pal!
The payoff for climbing to Martindale was the blast down the zig-zags down The Hause, though I did it forwards and carefully, not backwards on one wheel. The tarmac spin back to Pooley Bridge was despatched fairly quickly having caught up with another racing friend, Roger, and we chatted our way back along the road before I dropped off the back climbing up to Celleron and back towards Askham. I'd been looking at the map and evaluating my time, and decided I would go a bit longer on the bike, having only been out about 2:30 on the first loop. There was another shorter route I could do, mainly on tarmac with a handful of bridleways, so I headed south for Helton, then up onto the fell again, dodging tourists and their dogs out for a walk, down a short bridleway then looping round Rough Hill and back towards Butterwick and Helton again, and back to Askham on the road. Bumped into Sean and Ruth sunning themselves with a coffee on a bench by Askham Stores having been for a walk up onto the fell. They started making me jealous with talk of steak pie, so I headed off to transition and get a wee wander on foot in myself.
One bit of preparation that had gone right was my transition bag, and the secret weapon therein. I may have attracted a couple of jealous glances as I sat down to changes my shoes and pulled out my still sealed, still hot enough insulated mug of coffee, followed by two pain au chocolat. A veritable feast mid-way through a race, and yet I was still only in transition six-and-a-half minutes, pretty swift for me.
Run - http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/1386570359
 |
| "Where's the finish dibber?! I want to stop!" - Pic: James Kirby |
Comments