Battle On The Beach

[Barchettaman]

Sounds like brilliant fun! I’d definitely try and work out some sort of training plan, though.
Best of luck!

[gazza285]

Me and the youth are racing again. Being sensible this time and riding a bicycle with gears.

[yellowjack]

Well, it's kicking off tomorrow night (Battle In The Dark) and I'm nowhere near ready. The bike hasn't really had a good going over, although it has been ridden a few times in the past few weeks. My kit and tools are still all over the place. Certini and Royal Mail have conspired to delay dispatch/delivery of my new waterproof jacket until after I plan to be on the road tomorrow. Not that I'd race in a waterproof, really, but I don't have a jacket for "hanging around before the race in" at the moment. I've got to get up early tomorrow and literally throw the bike and some kit into the back of the car, along with a couple of suitcases as my wife invited herself along (I'm not complaining, as it means three nights in a half decent hotel instead of two nights in a tent with no showers). She's hoping to stop off at St Fagans National Museum of History near Cardiff on the way down, but I fear she's going to be disappointed.

I think I ticked the "I intend to be competitive" box on the entry form, too, so quite possibly in the second start pen behind the seeded riders. Which is going to be highly embarrassing when I'm passed by all and sundry on the schlepp up the beach. On the strength of recent rides I'll be lucky to make it around the three laps, let alone looking anywhere near "competitive. Ah, well. Every year I promise I'll make this one my last. And every year I log on like a fool on New Year's Eve to enter again. This year I fear I may regret my decision a great deal more than previous editions of the race...

[gazza285]

Sat in my Airbnb in Burry Port. I have ridden a bicycle twice this year. “Preparation?” I hear you cry…

Well I bought a new chain, but I’m not going to fit that before a beach race. Squirted some wire and chain lube I nicked from work on the drive chain, then wiped off the resulting mess. Chucked the bikes on the roof rack, should maybe have checked the pressures first, but I’m sure they are fine. What could possibly go wrong?

First XC race in just over three years, covid fked up my racing lifestyle, I’ve never felt the urge since I stopped in 2020, but we will see what happens. Probably still beat Yellowjack.

[gazza285]

Beat Yellowjack.

[yellowjack]

gazza285 said:

Beat Yellowjack.

Just about everyone beat yellowjack!

Battle In The Dark: 181st of 200 finishers.
Battle On The Beach: 660th of 676 finishers.

That's from the official results pages, too, so no wriggle room for me to claim any ambiguity.

Aside from the terrible results, though, it was a good weekend. I wasn't in a good place going into the event, either physically or mentally. And that was made worse by fears over the weather, and the prospect of camping. But my wife invited herself along, and that meant a hotel booking and access to a bath and hot breakfast. Then the weather decided to "play nice" with us. Massive rain shower on site just as registration for BITD closed at 6 pm, but it cleared nicely in time for the start of the "time trial" and I got around the course OK. Certainly the bike wasn't showing signs of suffering from my neglect of it, and it turned out that my bike handling was good (enough to stay upright) even if my legs weren't.

The main event was OK too. Weather overnight hadn't done too much harm to the course, the morning's weather was pretty benign, not cold, nor wet, and it stayed "nice" for the duration of the race, and even for the prize presentations at the end. So I got my bike into the car just as the post-race rain came in, meaning less car cleaning is needed now I'm back home.

I can honestly say that, despite my woeful race results, I definitely "left it all on the course". After the race we headed back to our hotel and I soaked in the bath for a couple of hours followed by a "room picnic" of locally sourced goodies. I was in no shape to head down to the restaurant, and my legs were like jelly. A glass of bubbles knocked me out by 8 pm and I slept through to breakfast on Monday. I felt slightly more human on Monday, but I was hugely grateful to my wife for booking us the hotel for the Sunday and Monday nights as I was not in any fit state to (responsibly) drive back to Bournemouth straight after the race.

Event atmosphere was as good as ever it was, although I did miss being on-site at the campsite on the Saturday. It would have been nice to have been able to enjoy a (singular) beer after BITD and just stroll over to my tent rather than having to drive to a hotel in town. I thought the band (The Hurricanes?) were good value too. They have a very varied set list, and they're pretty tight as a traditional guitar/bass/drums three piece.

On the Monday morning I was swearing (as I do every year) that I'd "never do that again", but I strongly suspect I'll at least try to sign up next year. I'm hoping now that it will give me the nudge I need to "get back into cycling" so that I can build a decent base of fitness over the intervening nine months so that, come New Year's Eve, I'll have a little more confidence in my readiness to "compete" in the 2024 BOTB. It would be over-egging the pudding somewhat to call anything I do "training", but if I'm riding regularly I might not come quite so close to last as I did this year...


ETA:
One slight downer I've just discovered. My Garmin either didn't save the race on Sunday, or for some reason won't give the data up to Garmin Express/Garmin Connect, so no Strava upload for me this year. The watch did record a partial trace of the night race (my fault for not pressing 'start' before I began riding) and it recorded a walk at Pembroke Castle on the Monday afternoon. So I suspect it may be "operator error" and I failed to save the activity before charging the watch or starting the new activity on Monday. Ho-hum.

Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 29th March 11:10