Bloody good event !
Really well organised, friendly and helpful marshals and volunteers
- even the guy printing-out the certificate at the end thought to glance at it, note my name and hand it to me with a comment of 'Well done, Andy, good time' : a little thoughtful touch and the whole event had quite a few similar ones.
A good route, great weather - although I'm a bit on the pink side now...
I went to Italy last week, did 330miles over 5 100K+ days including Friday and then a plane back in the evening, didn't get home until the early hours yesterday (Saturday).
Perhaps this wasn't the classic preparation
The riding imght have been good conditioning, but the late night made me feel terrible yesterday and 'tapering' consisted of rebuilding the bike and attempting to laze about yesterday.
So this morning I felt stiff and tired before I got out of bed.
Those climbs early on past the reservoirs were a bit alarming, coming so early and I was feeling tired and weak, too many miles in my legs from Italy, for most of the first 50 miles.
Then things improved, but it was a bloody long way and some seriously sapping hills, like Langbar near the end.
Was pushing at the finish, trying to get under the 8 hours and managed 7:58, so happy with that. My computer had ride time of 7:47, so seems I'm getting better at not lurking in the feedstations !
The only thing that was disappointing was watching some ape, riding with a big group from Hambledon RC, but in black&red 'The House Designer' kit, take a bottle of water out of his back pocket, ride no-hands and empty it into his bike bottle, then fling the empty plastic bottle over the hedge.
I was too far behind to say anything at the time, but saw him later at a feedstop and he's number 750
Whoever you are - you're a complete pillock !