2008 British Marathon NPS - Grizedale

With tired legs Mel and I both woke on Sunday morning to find another dry sunny day. (Mountain Mayhem this weekend looks like it will be a muddy one though so I must not have completely great karma) This time around Mel and I made sure we had plenty of time to make it down to the race course and at least have a partial warmup. My warmup consisted of 15 minutes riding with 3 tempo efforts – a whole lot less intense then before an XC race but then again, I was going to be riding for 5 hours!

The course

The course was a little different then the previous days – the first technical climb was removed and replaced by a much longer fireroad climb that brought us onto some really nice trail centre type single track that eventually brought us back to the top of the technical climb. The rest of the course was unchanged. Total elevation gain per lap was 330 meters with a distance of about 12.5km. For the 100km race, it would be 8 laps (obviously!)

The race start - pic from here

The race started gently enough with William Bjergfelt and I losing the rest of the field by the top of the climb. Unfortunately, a few of the other main contenders where not in the race. I raced on William's wheel until the second climb where her increased the speed and seeing as it was a long race, I decided to not go to much into the red and I let him go. I knew from previous races that he likes to start fast. I rode pretty steady and on a rocky technical descent that claimed many puncture victims both days I passed William who was having his own tire issues. About another lap later I seen William on my tail again but again, he left me on a climb – I just didn't seem to have the legs anymore after the previous days excertions.

The rest of the race went by reasonably well – it is always around the 3rd or 4th lap that I ask myself, “why am I doing this”. I have been riding for 2.5 hours and I'm still only half way. Once I get to the 5th lap though, your mostly home and in these events, I find the last lap time... Only 12.5% to go!

A little over 5 hours later I finished up in second behind William – there really was not that much interesting things during the race apart from lapping people although I did get to like lots of the singletrack. With the pre-ride, XC and Marathon, there were sections that I rode 17 times... Gotta know them by now.

There is a report available here, race results here and Mel's report here.

As I mentioned earlier – Mel and I are off to Mountain Mayhem this weekend. Please please please let it be a dry one!