November 17, 2013

2013 Wildman off-road duathlon

After last winter mostly spent indoors, stuck on a turbo or a treadmill, I thought it would be fun to mix things up and go play in the mud. Alongside registering to a silly event like the Grim challenge, I’ve also hit the button to enter the whole of the Human race winter off-road series. Moment of madness? Given how hard the first race was yesterday, probably!

Leaving T1 at the wildman 2013
Photo Marsha El-Hage

Setting the stage

Last time I had a bike which “resembled” a mountain bike was about 15 years ago. I never did a “proper” mountain bike ride with mud, rocks, lots of ups and downs and technical sections. I bought my current MTB exactly 1 month ago, and did only 70K on it around Richmond park and Wimbledon Common, both of which can be considered flat compared to the Wildman’s course. Last time I did a duathlon (before last week-end’s Hillingdon road sprint), was my first multi-sport attempt at the London duathlon (also road based), all the way back in 2007. I had no idea, no training, and 2 years old shoes… In other words, even with some good base fitness, the Wildman was going to be very hard!

Change of weather and kit choice

As far as I know, last year’s Wildman was rainy, and extremely boggy. This year, it was cold, but there wasn’t too much mud. Just one patch on the long loop, and the usual pond on the 5K run. The forecast was right: the car was showing 2C when I arrived at the race, so I layered up a lot! I hate the cold, and with my track record of getting frozen to death and not choosing to wear enough kit, I decided to take no chances this time. For bottoms, I had tri shorts under long leggings, plus my D3 tri shorts on top of it all for warmth, extra padding and to show the club colours. For the top: a Craft zero extreme wicking layer, a Helly Hansen crew long levee top to take the scratches, and my club tri top to keep the wind at bay. Short gloves under long running ones for the run, all topped with my assos early winter road gloves for the bike. (yes, that’s 3 pairs for the bike) Plus a neck buff and a winter cycle hat for the ride. That’s quite some kit and I sweated a bit on the first run on the tail wind portions, but I was happy to have all that on. For me, that was a good choice: I started to feel the cold in the middle of the second run as the sun had disappeared. Some guys were wearing only shorts and tee-shirts. No idea how they do that!!

The course

Brutal! There’s no other word for it! The run, especially around the start, is up and down all the time, and it’s single track. There’s virtually no space to pass anyone, and you either seed yourself correctly at the start (Yeah… Like I had any idea!!), or you have to be patient in the line of runners. It opens only after a few Km, and you can then chose a bit more your line, but you’ve got to be very careful where you step. I think I may have twisted again my left ankle :-/ Also, there were essentially 4 races in one: a 10 K race, a 15K race with and without dogs, and a duathlon. The duathlon starting 20min after the first 10K race, you keep passing people on the run, some of them with their dogs, which is quite funny to watch (dogs goes right, owner goes left, both end up in the mud…), and also very nice to have as an organised event. A far cry from most of the WTC events I’ve raced this year.

When switching onto the bike, you do 2 laps of the long loop you’ve just ran. The same problems arise: narrow in many places, very steep in others, and impossible to pass at some points. There was one steep ascent I don’t think I saw anyone climb on their bike. I was glad I had studs under my shoes to push the bike uphill! The super cheap Wiggle DHB M-1 worked a treat! On the second bike lap, I took a tumble on the very steep, gravely, descent. There was a photographer at the bottom and I really hope he’s got good shots of it! Not sure I want to do it again, but it must have been funny as it was quite a slo-mo one. No scrapes on me, just a bit of mud. Moving on! Interestingly, coming from the road, I had good power on the flat-ish sections and passed a few people, but I was wayyyy too slow on the technical bits. Lack of MTB riding of course, but some of the guys there had either no brain, or the most amazing reactions and handling skills. Some were literally flying pass me on the descents, no brakes, just flat out… On the road I’m a good rider on descents. On a MTB, it looks like I’m pretty much useless! Other than this, it was hard going, and it’s on another level compared to riding a long distance triathlon. You just cannot, at any time, settle into a rhythm. It’s all up/down, stop/go. That’s a killer! But that was the point…

The second run was simply evil. The first one in comparison, even with its length, was almost easy. Ups are steep, downs are steep. I was tired, tight and I started to cramp severely after going through the freezing pond around the second km. Eventually both my adductors locked up trying to go up a bank that was so steep you needed your hands to go up it. With cramped legs, I was literally stranded there, unable to move for about a minute. Not. Nice! I also realised 2Km from the end that the “roadwork ribbon” (the bits of red/white plastic ribbon) was indicating the route… Would have helped to realise that earlier as I took the wrong turn at some point! Dooh!

Nutrition

Ouch… You think it’s hard on a road triathlon? Try off-road! I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be that hard. On the first run, maybe there’s no real place/time to take anything on except on the flatter parts on the other sir of the circuit, but on the bike, it’s just impossible unless you have everything in a camelback or stop on the side of the track to grab your bottle. My hands were so tight and painful from holding the bars that I had to stop a couple of times to extract my bottle from its cage! On the second run (especially on that course), there was no respite from the terrain, and no aid station. So take your own, and maybe pause here and there to get something in? Mind you, on the last 5K, it’s probably too late anyway. I also had a very strange thing happen to my drink bottle in that the powder didn’t dilute well. I used hot water in the hope to get a not-frozen bottle, but it may have triggered some sort of reaction as it went all lumpy and even blocked the nozzle. I didn’t notice until I reached that bit of the bottle mid ride, and therefore couldn’t drink anything from roughly half way in the bike leg, which didn’t help the second run and the massive cramping.

Lessons learned

Layering up worked this time! Keep it like that!
Don’t over-do the first run, the rest of the route is just as hard and you’ll need energy!
Ride more technical terrain! Lack of skills on descents compared to many others was clearly visible!
More hill work needed, both on bike and on foot. Cramping on the second run was probably due to a combination of many things. Too fast first run, lack of MTB riding and subsequent energy expenditure, nutrition not going in due to… err… terrain being to hard, etc. But more hill practice can only help.
Follow red/white plastic ribbon on the run trails so you don’t get lost! They’re not bits of litter, they’re showing you the route!
Don’t use hot water with powdered drinks, or at least try it before a race. Not sure if it’s only the brand I use, but that’s something I’m not going to try again!

Bring it on!

This was hard. Very, very hard. Off road is relentless! There’s no time to admire the view or get lost in your own thoughts. You can’t end-up being bored on the bike, and the level is… astounding. But it was also a lot of fun! Brutal fun, but something new that I liked. Ah, and I’m not great at it, which is fantastic. So much to learn too! This was only the first race in the series of 4. The next one is on December 7th, where a few other D3 will apparently also take part! So I’ll see you there!