Mud Sweat and Gears 2017

[Steve Hanks]

Entries soon open to this excellent series, with the first race local at Lee Valley and early too being in February...

http://www.mudsweatgears.co.uk

[Chris Clague]

First race sold out

[Steve Hanks]

The second - in March - is over 50% already.

[JackCurzon]

Sunday was round one of the Mud, Sweat and Gears south eastern series at Stratford. For those of you who don't know this is the premier mtb race series for those living east of London. It's an XCO format series (cross country Olympic) which mean senior racers can expect to be pedalling for around 90 minutes. The organisers do a great job making the very narrow Stratford course raceable, and since it is a pan flat hard packed man made circuit, an easy venue for my first race of the year (i.e. the race will only be as hard as you make it).

Last year I rode four rounds of the series and without carrying out any structured training usually placed mid pack; definitely room for improvement then. This year, being more time crunched than ever, I decided to maximise training time (and hopefully effectiveness) by signing up to TrainerRoad and learning to love my turbo...which given the winter we've been having hasn't been particularly hard to do.

So on Sunday, I arrived at Stratford at 8am to do a bit of pre-race marshalling with Stan, which was fine but not the ideal race prep on a chilly day or the best way to please the DS when your already making her give up her day off from looking after our 1 year old. Anyway having just finished 12 weeks of base training, slight head cold aside, I knew what kind of power I should be able to produce (a great benefit of turbo training) and looked forward to seeing where this put me amongst my Veteran peers. My only concern was pacing. I didn't want to go too hard and put myself in hole toward the end of the race but not go too easy early on. To this end my plan consisted of avoiding 'long' anaerobic efforts. Sophisticated plan eh?

As with a CX race the start of a MTB race is basically a massive sprint to get to the technical stuff first to avoid being caught behind slower riders and hopefully not lose sight of the faster ones. With that in mind, I decided at the announcement of “the race will start at any time in the next ten seconds” to start getting out my inhaler and have a puff. No sooner had I done that than the whistle goes, so now I’m sprinting one handed trying to put it back in my jersey pocket. Sigh. Fortunately the Stratford course has a long grass start straight so I managed to pull myself in to the top quarter entering the single track. Therein I settled in to my groove and rode out the race at a manageable effort. I started cramping on the last lap (of seven) which suggests to me I got my pacing about right and finished 8th (which I’m happy with). My normalised power was right around my FTP which means training wise, I’m where I thought I was (which is very handy to have affirmed). I still feel I compromise my race in the technical sections, which I’m ok with, since it means there is ‘free’ time for me to gain as my bike handling improves. Straight line sustained speed was good though (clearly I am still a roadie at heart).

Time now to get back on the turbo and start my Build phase on TrainerRoad, which I believe is pretty much VO2 efforts of varying lengths three times a week for 6 of 8 weeks. Yay. Not. Hopefully this will keep pushing up my FTP and by May, I won’t have got sick of indoor training and will be ready for the season target of being competitive at Beastway 2017. MSG round two in three weeks.

[StevenDrew]

Nice one, Jack. How was the course? I recall there was a previously conversation about it not being too good for actual racing. Has any of that been ironed out?

[JackCurzon]

The MSG have managed to turn a pigs ear of a raceable course in to a pretty good one. Although there are lots of single track where passing is very hard there are also quite a few double track bits. The technical features also make much more interesting than most courses I've ridden.


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[Steve Hanks]

And so the series - and my season ends. Some brilliant courses and racing this year hosted by MSG concluded yesterday. Well done to Jack who's performed well in the series, and I've not done so bad after riding the first half with a quad strain thinking I was just pushing training a bit hard, to see my results leap up after I'd let it heal.

It was a difficult course yesterday. It did start drying after being wet and used for CX the day before, but they shortened the distance yet added one massive great climb up a slippery wooded section. I ended up racing 21kM with 500m of vertical!

I started with a nightmare week. Overweight from Holiday, having to switch to the wrong (longer) fork off the other bike Saturday night as the Race fork has failed, using a heavy spare front wheel, I'd worked hard the week before to get fitter again, then got frustrated with taper as I tried to keep the effort down - nevertheless it went to plan. Both kids have had colds (as do I today) and I woke up feeling a bit "meh" in the morning. However, I was on course to finish within the top 20 Eastern Regional so I needed to race. The course practise didn't give me much confidence - steep slippery up, followed by uncertain slippery down, but hey - its the same for everyone.

So I lined up 2nd row due to some absentees, waited for the whistle and... BANG! My chain snapped on the sprint start. FFS! I took me 7 minutes to remove bent links and replace with quick-link and off I went rather late to a round of applause, think I may just get SOME points and might get into the top 20 - Maybe. The course got drier and drier and therefore faster as I rode, being able to ride 2 clear laps before the Elites leaders came past. I chased down a couple of rivals at the back of the Vets pack, took them, and just focused on being as fast as possible everywhere I could, using every ounce of knowledge to squeeze the power out of my legs and endurance everywhere else. I just kept going and going and going. Finally I'd finished 23rd and taken back 6 places after that 7 min deficit, 2 minutes behind my positional nemesis with post race analysis showing I'd raced every lap faster than 7 of the riders in front of me - oh it could have gone so well!

Anyway, in 3 seasons thats me gone from 31st, 26th and now 18th regional Vet, so theres some good signs on the horizon considering my non cycling background and max 8hrs a week training.

Alas thought it is with a stealth announcement I won't be racing for LP next year as I have a chanced to be coached formally by Torq Fitness over the winter to take on the BeMC Ardennes stage racing in March, and then the Scott Marathon Series here in the UK in 2018 with the PBCCRT (yes Paul Butler of SERRL fame) race team. Apparently they were attracted to my freakish addiction to training and fitness.

Its an opportunity I can't turn down, but who knows if I can cut the discipline required. I'll still be on LP rides as second claim though - this is my locale and I've no desire to leave the club. I'm very proud of my LP kit having joined 4 years ago to "try to get a bit fitter" to being inspired not only by a lot of the people who train and race for the club in all disciplines, but also those who help out, guide rides, provide little trinkets of advice here and there. Hence when I'm not competing I shall still be representing LP with pride. Thanks to everyone who either intentionally or unintentionally helped me to this point, I'm sure I'll be back earning points for LP in the future.

[OwenWilkins]

Best of luck for next season Stan..... exciting news !!

[JackCurzon]

Chapeau to you Stan! Looking at a few riders Strava entries, some recorded over 700m of climbing over 26km - totally brutal! Langdon Hills is, I think, the toughest course of the season. I noticed in some photos you seem to have ridden with only one arm warmer?? My preparation was all lined up having shipped my road bike to Tuscany for me hols. Alas fate decreed otherwise and I cut my heel open in a lido and that ended that plan. Two weeks off the bike and a week to go I decided I couldn't face doing a race. It's been a long season and I'm mentally drained of the will to suffer.

Good luck with the Torq crew and the new plan. I hope it means you're up for some Eppjng rides or perhaps something further afield? As we've discussed over the season, I definitely want to do some outdoor training rides on the mtb this winter.

As for my season on the mtb it's been pretty good. Thanks to the patients and understanding of the DS and despite a very tiring one year old who gets up too early and goes to sleep too late, I managed to follow the TrainerRoad mid-volume training plan without too much illness or interruption. I never made the 4w/kg I’d hoped for (and needed) to be at the front of races but instead found myself at front of the middle (or back of the front?) at a slightly less respectable 3.6w/kg. My endurance for the longer XCO races didn’t feel that great, so I’m not convinced doing 1-1.5hr sweet spot rides is enough for building a solid base of fitness (especially as TSS falls once you move in to build & speciality/racing phases). However, 5th Vet in the Beastway series and a podium at the hottest round of the MSG were gratifying results.

Next year...more of the same...life permitting.

[Steve Hanks]

I noticed in some photos you seem to have ridden with only one arm warmer??

As much as I'd love to spin the Elite Running science of airflow moving around my body vs the curvature of the course hence one arm warmer, actually I'm protecting the softer new skin on my left elbow thats replace the original and the healing of the glued on "flap" after my Exmoor accident.

mentally drained

Me too - 19 races this year.

I hope it means you're up for some Eppjng rides or perhaps something further afield? As we've discussed over the season, I definitely want to do some outdoor training rides on the mtb this winter.

I shall be there quite a lot, plans for Peaslake rides, and some of the Gorrick races (as C races) as well. I'll be using Hadleigh for some training too.

[Chris Clague]

I noticed in some photos you seem to have ridden with only one arm warmer??

Did the other one get caught in the chain by any chance?

19 races is a lot. Well done mate.