Steve was staying there the night before so he kindly picked up my race pack which turned out to be a pain in the arse as they could not find me
. Yup it started well before I even got there. My number did not exist, they had to make me a new one. My wave was now earlier than I had been put into before oh joy. So got up Sunday morning at 3am stumbled downstairs had a BIG bowl of porridge and that was me virtually ready to go. Car was packed the night before. When I was getting into the car my neighbours daughters were just coming back from their night out.
The journey to Pitlochry was pretty much uneventful, of course I never checked what roads were closed. I can be glad that none of the roads I took were closed
. Arrived at the car park, which I pre booked just before 5am. I was meant to start at 6:45am. Met up with Steve, got my race pack. Then it was time for pre race bike check (yes I had done one the day before). Everything checked out okay until I decided to inflate the rear tyre and boom.....valve broke and tyre just pished out air. Change inner tube and everything was sorted. Time to get to the bullpin. We were supposed to be in J wave, there was no way in buggery that we were getting anywhere near that wave. There was no way through we did manage to get ourselves into N wave (each wave had about 200 people in it). It was not that long a wait between waves about 2 mins. I stayed with Steve for the first 20 miles or so then he pushed on. The scenery was amazing, the weather was virtually perfect. Yes it was a tad windy but nothing like I have endured in my training rides. I was averaging about 17-18 miles per hour. Which I was happy with. Lot of hills, which also meant a lot of descents............I am crap at them too scared incase I get a puncture, which in turn did happen to someone else on the course it did look a sore one. Anyway I was making good time (I set out with 2 goals, 1 to finish, 2 to average 15mph). Then cam king of the mountain. Fook me that killed not just me but the bike aswell. Unsure of the gradient but it was 2 miles I think. Saw Steve catching up (yes I overtook him) he then overtook me about 20 metres from the summit. Then about 10 Metres from the summit........BANG. WTF was that pedaling nothing. Looked down to see that my chain had snapped, I thought that was it race done at 46 miles
. I had a choice either wait for the MAVIC maintenance guys or the sweeper bus. Litterly within 30 seconds for this happening another guy got to the top and his rear derailleur had broken off. So we waited and waited and waited. Eventually one of the MAVIC guys turned up first I flagged him down to see if he could fix the broken chain and thankfully he could. By this point I was freezing, could hardly feel my fingers and had completely cooled down. From me stopping to the bike being fixed was over 45 minutes. So I was back on the road had to again take it slowly to warm the legs and me up again. This was starting to feel like 2 training sessions. Did not push up the hills to hard incase the chain broke again. By now I knew that my official timing was completely messed up. Got round the rest of the course, nothing really to report. I did have to stop at one of the feed stations as I had drunk the rest of the my water and finished my clif bar. So refilled my water bottle, and restocked with Zipvit (which I have never tried), they were nice. Crossed the finish line in 5hr 8 mins, which is my official time. My unofficial time, as I stopped the Garmin and restarted it when the bike was fixed was 4hrs 24mins.
I am pretty much pissed off that all the mishaps today. But even with the mechanical problems I still averaged over 15 mph, which was my goal. I am even happier with my unofficial time. Averaging just over 18 mph I will take that any day.
Got changed and fed then headed home to fall asleep just past 9pm. Legs are knackered this could take more than a couple of days to recover.
Now to buy a chain and rear cassette
Onto Outlaw in 3 weeks
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