Last week I wrote a
post about my training from March to June and the races that I did in the run up to Q100.
There's something special about the 100 mile TT. In endurance running, the marathon is the gold standard, marquee event. Every runner wants to run a good marathon. Obviously, there are events that go further than the marathon – and the 100 – but there's something intangible about these two similar events that holds a certain mysticism.
Why? I dunno. Perhaps it's the physical limitations. Sure, you can run or ride further but in order to race these events – that is to complete them as fast as you possibly can as opposed to just finishing – you have to spend the majority of your race on the precipice of failure.
That, for me, is why I'm so drawn to the distance. Not only is it a momentous physical challenge, but you've got to be willing to hold your nerve for the best part of four hours trusting that all of the training, the nutrition and hydration plans that you've concocted will get you to the finishing line.
I did my first 100 in 2019 and was elated to sneak under four hours at the first time of asking. Back then I hadn't used a power meter, so my training was all based on heart rate (incidentally, a pretty good metric for long training rides and the event itself) with long rides gradually increasing the time spent at my 100m TT effort.
On that day, my HRM failed so I set my Garmin up to display Time, Speed and Distance – that good old fashioned physics triangle.
Fast forward two years and I now had 3s Power, Current Speed, Heart Rate, Cadence, Average Speed and Average Power metrics on my screen. If you read my previous post, you'll know that I have been predominantly focusing on Current Speed this year, and this race was no different despite having target power numbers.
Back in February, I wrote this on TrainingPeaks after a long 5 hour ride with Chris Lockwood. I was cautiously optimistic, but it wasn't until I did some 'data blind' prep on the Tuesday before the race that I realised 260-270 would be about right, and I started the race with those numbers in mind.
Nutrition/Hydration Strategy
During the 50 I drank 500ml of SIS Beta Fuel mixed with water and took two gels, which was spot on.
I borrowed a couple of bottles from Dan Northover and Chris Hansen, and filled them with the Beta Fuel, which has 80g carbs per sachet, and dropped them to Dave Truman's house.
I would carry four gels down the front of my skinsuit, which was another 88g of carbs.
In total, I planned to consume 328g of carbs (three bottles including mine, and four gels) over the four hours, working out around 80-85g/hour.
Race Prep
I woke up at 4.30am, made a cup of coffee, decided against having breakfast (I had carbed up well the night before) and left home just before 5am.
The drive down to Brenzett along the M20 is pretty cool at that time of the morning. I had abstained from coffee for several days prior to the event, so I got a nice caffeine kick which may have been a placebo but I didn't care. There were some decent tunes on the radio and, with nothing on the road, I could enjoy the journey all the way there.
I got to the HQ around an hour before I was due to start, quickly gave the organiser a bottle of red wine for his 76th birthday, then spent the majority of my time in the queue for the loo.
Once I had dealt with the call of nature, I double checked everything, stashed the gels into my skinsuit and set off on the 6 mile journey to the start which would double up as a warmup.
The wind was really light and it felt great heading north to the start.
Although I tried to acquire a new inner tube for my front wheel, I couldn't get it sorted in time and, as the tyre had a few cuts in places, I decided to go for the slower but safer option of my Hunt front wheel. How much time this would lose me is hard to say, but it's most likely in the minutes.
The Race
The start of a 100 is a bit of an anti-climax. The timekeeper counts you down from five, just like any other race, but when you get going, there's an immediate inner conflict. Normally, you'd give it some beans to get up to speed but, when you've got the best part of four hours of riding to go, you've really got to keep a lid on things. So, rather than fireworks exploding as you race away from the line, it's more like party poppers going off at a kid's birthday party.
The vast majority of the course is spent on the Brenzett-Camber-Lydd-Old Romney circuit – 4 laps making up around 85 miles – so you start with 5 miles north to Ashford, then 10 miles south to Brenzett before starting the laps.
The beginning of this race was one of the few times when I focused a lot on power. There really is nothing to gain by going out too hard at this stage. So I kept things under controlled, reminded myself to stay relaxed, maintain a decent position and enjoy it.
The stretch to Ashford was surprisingly slow. I seem to remember not much traffic coming past. It was only just gone 7am to be fair to the motorists.
Heading south was much faster despite the wind not being in my favour, though it was so light at that point that it really didn't make a huge difference.
As the course bypasses Hamstreet around miles 9-11 the undulating road gently descends, so I took the opportunity to freewheel when my speed got up to 35mph knowing that there would be no other chances to freewheel, with the exception of junctions.
I got to the Brenzett roundabout in 34 minutes, averaging 26.5mph and 267 watts. I was surprised to have gone that fast – my PB is just over 25mph – but the effort was in check, I hadn't burnt any matches so to speak, and my position felt good.
Lap One – 15.0 to 36.2 – 48:59, 26.0mph, 263w
The wind had started to get up, but was by no mean blowing by the standards of that area, and there was a headwind all the way to Rye, around 7 miles, a 4 mile cross-headwind through Camber, 7 miles of tailwind through Lydd to Old Romney and then a 3 mile cross-headwind back to the roundabout.
As always, I pushed a bit harder into the wind, let the power drop a bit when possible and rode as smart as I could.
The first lap went by without major incident. Speed was good, power was good and my position felt sustainable. The only disappointment was seeing Martin in Dave's car as they came past me near Camber. Martin had obviously had some kind of mechanical so I was gutted for him.
Towards the end of the lap, I slowed down to collect a bottle from Dave but managed to knock the lid off as I grabbed it. In the space of a handful of seconds I went from panic, wondering whether to stop and go back for it, taking a few sips, putting it into the bottle cage, tentatively watching to see if any fluids came out the top, then deciding to carry on and forget about it, all while trying to avoid a few very significant potholes.
Looking back, I'm impressed with how rational I behaved during those moments!
Lap Two – 36.3 to 57.6 – 48:49, 26.4mph, 268w
It's really annoying that hardly anybody is on Strava Flybys anymore because I used to use it to count the amount of people I caught during races like this. My gut feeling is that I caught a lot more on the second lap than I did on the first, with which the numbers would seem to concur.
The second lap went by much the same as the first. I was really excited by how fast I was going for the power I was producing – make no mistake, the conditions were significantly faster than the 50 the weekend prior – and I had to rein my enthusiasm in when I started to work out the mental arithmetic for a 3:45 100.
All was going really well, I felt in control and it felt like only a mechanical issue was going to stop me from recording a huge PB.
I arranged to collect my second and final bottle from Dave & Martin and this time slowed down much more to ensure the lid remained intact. I shouted to Martin to ask for a bottle of water the next time I passed as the temperature was beginning to rise and I felt 500ml wouldn't sustain me for the remaining 100 or so minutes I would be riding for, particularly as the weather would only get warmer.
I took a few sips of the new bottle, put it into the cage and cracked on. Shortly after disaster struck. I hit a bump in the road, nothing major, but it was enough to pop the bottle out of the cage. I slammed the brakes on, chucked the bike in the hedge, then ran back up the road a la Chris Froome to collect the bottle which had, I suppose fortuitously, not been crushed by the traffic. Having picked the bottle up, I ran back to the bike, and got carried on.
I don't know whether it was the shock of running after two-and-a-bit hours of cycling, but my legs felt awful for it, even though the incident was around 40 seconds start to finish.
The graphic below shows the difference between lap one (black line) and lap two (purple line). I was 49 seconds 'up' when the bottle dislodged and only 5 seconds up when I restarted.
Lap Three – 57.7 to 78.9 – 49:11, 25.9mph, 250w
I don't know if it was the sensation of running, the disruption to my rhythm, knowing I still had another lap after this, or just fatigue building in my legs, but the third leg was a real mental struggle.
The first lap had felt easy, the second lap was mostly spent dreaming of an outrageous PB, but by the third I really started to feel it. The power was still there, I wasn't bonking or even feeling close to one, but my confidence had taken a hit and I let the doubts creep in.
The wind had started to pick up, so the stretch heading southwest from Brenzett was increasingly harder, and the road surface heading through Camber and Lydd wasn't getting any easier.
I don't remember much else from this lap other than just getting through it and trying to block out the negative thoughts.
Towards the end of the lap, I successfully grabbed a bottle of water from Martin and put it on the bike without incident.
Lap Four – 78.9 to Finish – 49:26, 25.7mph, 236w
Shortly after slowing right down to collect the last bottle, I was caught by the Scratch rider (the guy last off, 9 minutes after me). Usually, this guy is the best in the field, so will tear past you and disappear out of sight.
Although I let him go and consciously lowered my power to let him pull away, I caught up to him at the roundabout and, as the boot fair traffic just down from the Brenzett roundabout clogged the roads up, I was coasting sitting behind him not sure what to do.
I knew that I would have been capable of sitting on his wheel but obviously that's not in the spirit of testing, so I decided I would put in an effort to overtake him and hopefully gain enough time so we could ride our own races again.
Around 10 minutes later, he came back past me again, but this time barely got out of sight. It was a strange situation because I felt that he was slowing me down by being in front of me, to the point that I either needed to back off and accept I was going to lose time, or potentially blow up by trying to get past him again.
I had to freewheel behind him as we got to the turning just before Rye and, again, I decided to put an effort in to overtake and try to stay away.
This time I managed 7 minutes – at 280 watts which isn't too bad over 3 hours into the race! – before shipping my chain in Camber after having to break quite suddenly due to a car in front unexpectedly slowing down.
The scratch rider came past shortly after and I didn't see him again, as my legs were completely done.
The final 11 miles were a slog. I had blown up, overheated, potentially (but unlikely) underfuelled – I only had two of the gels – and was still 11 miles from the finish.
Fortunately, my position on the bike felt pretty good. So, rather than fight it, I accepted that I wasn't going to put out anywhere near the sort of numbers I'd come to expect and focused almost entirely on my best position and minimizing any unnecessary movement.
As the graphic shows, I managed to average 25.4mph during this stretch which is in part because of the favourable nature of the wind, but when compared with previous sections I only lost 30-60 seconds despite producing 40-60 watts fewer.
Tucked into the smallest amorphous blob I could contort my body into, I crawled my way to the finish line.
An 8-minute PB and a Top 10 in a good field, that will do nicely.
Final stats:
Time – 3:50:54
Speed – 25.99mph
Average Power – 256 watts
Normalised Power – 261 watts
Average Heart Rate – 164 bpm
Calories Burned – 3,528
Huge thanks to Dave and Martin for their support, and to Chris and Dan for lending the bottles.
Whilst the thought of doing another 100 – particularly on that course – isn't very appealing, I am tempted to try another on my preferred road – the unappreciated dual carriageway. There's another 100 in July on the A11 just south west of Norwich which looks like a lovely morning out. I can't say I'm not tempted.
Writing this on June 18, the week after the race was unstructured, mostly easy riding. This week I got back into training, building towards some 10s and 25s in August, hopefully peaking for the 10 on the A21 in late August.
Cheers for reading.
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