Four weeks on from the start of the cough…. still coughing. By this time I was not a happy bunny. Time to see the GP. Now this was a huge task in itself, after visiting my GP three times now in the last 10 weeks, I’m still not quite sure how the appointment system works – you seem to ring up one day and have to wait over two weeks for an appointment, ring another day and go in straight away – both times with the same complaint – huh? Anyway, on my first visit the GP suggested I use a Ventolin inhaler (the same blue inhaler that many asthma sufferers use) “have a two puffs on that now and again, but you’re ok to ride your bike” was the instruction. I was a bit disappointed by this, as I have never had asthma and was beginning to worry what was happening to my airways.

I tried starting training but any activity that involved my heart rate going over about 135 just set me off coughing again…even if I used the inhaler. It was at this point that I had to make the difficult decision about what to do with the rest of my biking year. I had planned to do ‘twentyfour12’ 24hr solo race in July and SPAM Set to Rise 12hr solo race in May as my warm up. For me, the psychological aspect of knowing that I have completed all of my training prior to doing an endurance race is as, if not more, important than the physical training, and it is because of this that I decided to pull out of my solo events. Although this was a difficult and disappointing decision to have to make I felt that getting rid of this cough was more important. So for the next few weeks I just had the odd ride breezing up and down the local cycle path.

Eight weeks on from the start of my cough…still coughing…. urgghhh! Back to GP, this time I was given antibiotics and a steroid nasal spray. This GP was a bit more informative giving me 4 options of the cause of the problem 1. Viral infection – which only time will settle. 2. Bacterial infection – antibiotics. 3. Adult onset asthma. 4. Something really bad – which as (apart from the cough) I was generally well we agreed was unlikely.

By this time I had started to really miss my training and was getting a bit twitched when friends were talking about events that they were entering:o(. Dave my partner had also been suffering with the same problem and was also a bit ‘down in his boots’ about the whole thing, especially as he has had to shift his ‘Hobbits Tale’ World Record Attempt back to late July (www.davebuchanan.co.uk for details). The SPAM Set to Rise event I had originally planned to enter still wasn’t full so in order to satisfy our MTB cravings we agreed to give it ago as ‘Mixed Pairs’ knowing that we could always pull out if we felt rubbish.

SPAM Set to Rise.

This event was located just the other side of Bath, so not too far to travel. I had heard good reports about the amount of single track for this event, hence my reasons for why I originally entered it. The weather had been dry that week, but just as we got there to set up camp it started to rain. A few showers had been forecast but these were due to die out soon so we weren’t too concerned.

Now Dave and I have never done pairs before, in fact I have only been in a team once, so this was totally new territory for us. We drew up a plan; Dave would go first as he was the faster rider, and we would do single laps to start so that we both got used to the course in the light and then switch to double laps when it got dark. We also had a little note pad to jot down messages to each other between laps. We had taken 3 bikes between us. Dave has managed to set our bikes up so that we can share bikes, even though we are different heights…not quite sure how he has done this but it works well for us. So basically he had his main bike, I had my main bike and then a spare just in case of mechanicals or dare I say it ….rain!

Half and hour before the start of the race……at this point the rain was literally bouncing off our gazebo…..hmmm. Dave was suddenly not so keen to ride first; he had summer tyres on his bike and felt that as I had a huge amount of experience riding around in mud (a good proportion of my 24hr events have been mud laden!) I should go first to suss out the conditions tyre wise….how kind I thought, he must love me very much (add in raised eyebrow icon thingy!).

So off I went. The course was fantastic, yes it was wet and muddy with slippery roots but it was great, a bit like Machen/Rudry area. There was one steepish off camber climb, which was unrideable to most of us, but to be fair the organisers took this out by the second lap and diverted the course onto the fire road.

I came back into the event area after my first lap, advised Dave to get the bike with the mud tyres ready for himself and went out for my second lap. The clouds kindly waited until I got to a large open section at the highest point of the course…and then threw hail stones at me….to be fair it did take my mind off being out of breath though.

So right from the start really our well-formed plan was turned on its head as we did the exact opposite to what we had originally planned. On top of that, although I was busy scribbling notes for Dave between laps, he completely forgot about the notebook and didn’t look at it once (add in another raised eyebrow icon thingy!).

We were 20mins behind after my first two laps (I’m presuming because the other 2 pairs had sent their fellers out first – no disrespect to the girls) so we were chasing for a good proportion of the race. At one point when I had had to stop after slipping on a root I let a few people past, then I suddenly noticed I had let one of our opponent’s female riders past, urrgh! I chased her, then she slipped and I passed her, then we got to the fire road and had some more tooing and froing until eventually she passed me on the climb :o(. She went out of my sight on the long open section at the top of the course, but luckily there was a long single-track section after this with short technical steep climbs, twists, turns, roots and bomb holes- my favourite. I managed to catch and pass her again on this section and hold her off until I switched with Dave in the arena. I came into to the transition point in agony, I don’t think I had ever ridden so hard, I had cramp in every muscle group in my legs, so much so I couldn’t walk the 20ft to my tent. I had to get back on my bike and ride there! The fact I had done hardly any training was defiantly showing and even if I had trained I have never raced that hard as I am always trying to conserve energy in my solo events, not use it all up in 60mins! Luckily a diarolyte and a few painkillers later I felt much better.

Overall, Dave had a really good race and felt strong, I however, although I enjoyed the course I felt ‘pants’ after the first two hours and could have given up at any point. Not really surprising in hindsight. Good news though we managed to come first which we were very pleased with and won a load of ‘Charge Bike’ goodies for our efforts.

This was another new event for me this year but again along with the Exposure Big Night Out, SPAM Set to Rise is another race that I would recommend and will certainly be on my calendar for next year – it’s a fantastic course if you like single track, a friendly atmosphere and it’s not too far away for us South Waleans’ :o).

Health and race wise – well my next event that I had kept on my Calendar was Bristol Bike Fest 6hr female pairs. Would I feel well enough to do it after Set to Rise? That will be in my next Castle Bikes blog instalment.

Enjoy your riding.

Jo

(Sorry this is a bit behind schedule, my fault not Jo's... Steve)