and none more so than a multi day, multi discipline sport that combines
mentally and physically pitting yourself against your fellow competitors
and mother nature.
So day 1 had been a raging success, and day 2 was my chance to consolidate
my lead. Starting last, I had the luxury of spending the day chasing, and
with this being the last day of paddling, it was my opportunity to make the
most of the fantastically fast epic V10 surfski that ultimatekayaks.co.uk
had loaned me in taking time on the lakes.
Starting with a short road ride out of keswick up a hill, I arrived at the
north end of thirlmere about 4 minutes down on team Helly Hansen, so we'd
knocked the ride out in a similar time.
Another swift and efficient transition (new team member hildy, who had
joined us last night fitted straight in) had me on the water, slowly
closing in on HH, who in turn were creeping towards 8ruce (with hot legs
according to my support crew).
Exitting the lake I overtook HH as I slung the V10 (very happy it's the
11kg 'ultra' model) on my shoulder and they lugged their necky up the
track.
through transition while bruce was still changing his shoes, and onto a run
I had seen the start of last week. Up the forestry track, and as I came
back, bruce popped out in front of me - I was now last on the road again as
the others had all elected to go bush up the hill and taken reasonable time
out of me. Oh well, there went any chance of the king of the mountain award
for the day, so I just slogged up the hill conserving myself for the
descent.
My the top HH had pulled out 3 minutes on me, bruce a minute or so, and ant
emmett was just in front. The descent off helvelyn was pretty spectacular,
slippy, dangerous, and covered in walkers who were very gracious about
moving out of the way.
Down into Patterdale and I'd overtaken maybe half a dozen places, and saw
bruce heading out in his boat as I was directed to the youth hostel hosting
the TA.
Here my crew, who have christened themselves H2O were waiting, got me
quickly into my kayak gear, and pointed me at the exit.
The river down to Ullswater was great fun, and I must have overtaken 5
people before hitting the lake - mainly people showing that Kayaking is
very weak in british multisport as they fought to keep their boats out of
the willows, or pointing in the right direction.
I used to hate the paddling sections in multisport races, but prefer almost
anything to swimming, so stuck with it, and once I bought a surfski,
actually started enjoying paddling. I think everyone I passed in the
middle, windy section of the lake will confirm how much fun I was having
here, and generally how little fun they were having, and will hopefully be
encouraged to go out and buy a ski and start paddling it - people spend
happily spend a grand on a bike that lasts a season, but balk at spending
less than that on a boat they can keep for years ... But I digress ;-)
Anyway, so I passed bruce, HH, and seemingly 90% of the field on the
paddle, and thought I was heading out onto the ride in 1st place.
I was using road wheels, so was careful along the early bridleway section,
not wanting a repeat of yesterday's puncture, even getting off and running
for a stony section, and then it was road all the way to kirkby stephen.
Through shap, and a particularly dodgy descent into crosby ravensworth,
through maulds meaburn and over a nasty little uppy downy section of back
road that kev and I had decided looked like the go, and I hadn't seen
anyone ... As expected.
So I was a little surprised to turn out of the road and see 3 racery
looking people just ahead, with 3 more way up the road, one of whom
appeared to have bruce's distinctive green shorts!
To say I was a little perturbed was an understatement! After dispatching of
the immediate 3, who seemed as confused as me when they saw the yellow
jersey, I spent the next few miles chasing the rather stronger rider ahead.
Passing another team, I came across bruce's father taking photos, and
confirming that he was ahead.
Some fairly serious effort saw me catch him about 2 miles out of town, and
we rode in together, with him taking line honours (though not overall, as
HH and a couple of others were already in).
So as I said in the title-it's a funny old game, where all the gains made
in nearly 20k of Kayaking were almost undone by a bit of poor route choice,
resulting in a lot harder finish to the day than expected.
oh well, seeing how well I recover from today will be a good test for the
efficacy of the for goodness shakes recovery drinks that I skulled once
over the line, and the go fast I will be guzzling during the race tomorrow!
Results : I'm still in the lead, with another 2 mins gained over HH, and 8
over bruce, as second solo 44 mins behind.
Kevin also moved up a place after another strong day, enjoying the run over
helvelyn, and not enjoying the swells on Ullswater.
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