Back at the O-Cup and a blazing hot day

Since coming to Canada my eyes have been opened as to how good some of the trails here really are, and that's without yet having even been out to the Rockies. Ontario is littered with good trail runs which suits the non-climber like me nicely. Sure there was some steep drags, but there's not what you would call a mountain in sight and so any climb can be summited in about five or six minutes.

As each race in this Ontario Cup series has come and gone I have declared the course the best I have ever ridden. Actually, that usually comes during practice when I ride at a nice steady pace knowing that I'm not in a race. And that was no different this weekend as the O-Cup's forth round took me to Albion Hills. I'd never been there before, which should seem odd given it's only 45 minutes from where I live and is one of the bigger mountain bike parks in the area, but on Friday night I went up to ride two laps of the race course for Sunday and came away declaring it the 'best course I've ever ridden'. It was fast, smooth, and there was no killer climbing. All the uphill was steep but short and a little momentum into the hill could carry you about halfway up.

As ever I decided not to race the first lap and a half, but to instead take it easy and try make each lap time faster than the last. My practice run indicated this could be possible and I set heart-rate targets for each lap that should leave me with plenty in the tank for the last go around.

But one thing I didn't factor in from the practice ride on that beautifully still Friday evening as the setting sun stretched out my shadow to about ten lengths of my actual body, was that the same sun would be higher in the sky come Sunday at 11.45am and much stronger. By race time it was well into the 30's with humidity and I had just the one bottle of eLoad with which to ration around the three laps.

As the first lap came to an end in a time of 27:52 I felt great. I was well off the lead, but that was fine. This was an O-Cup race and I was never going to win it. I had gone off steady and that was the main plan, though my average HR was a little bit higher than I had hoped. I hoped that if I could keep the second lap consistent then I would have something extra to give on the final lap and while that second lap left me feeling a little tired but still feeling like I had maintained a good speed, I was surprised to later read it was 1:36 slower than the first.

I put that down to two things. One, I hadn't gone off as easily as I had thought -- though it's lucky I went easier than I might otherwise have in previous races -- and two, that the heat was starting to take its toll.

Going onto the third lap all that was left in my bottle was about an inch of water laced with the dregs of that eLoad. It was warm, it was thick and it wasn't good. I had sucked in a Hammer Gel on the previous lap which also proved to be a mistake. As good as this stuff is half-an-hour before the race, taking it during only left me feeling sick and spending the third lap retching.

The third lap I pushed harder as planned but soon had to back off. It was clear that what I had tried to save in the first two laps had been stolen by the thick humid heat and zero breeze that was getting through the trees. I was drying out, dehydrating, gasping for water and at one point even feeling chills which definitely wasn't a good sign. I was delighted that I had saved something for the last lap because had I gone hard from the start, I'd have found myself halfway around the course lying in the gutter begging for any passing cyclist to spare me a drip from their bottle.

I was tempted to ask anyone I passed, or was passed by, to give me a sip from their bottle, but I never did. I struggled on to the finish with a third lap that was 2:50 slower than the first but not a bad drop off. So much for getting faster but at least I found out a couple of things about my current limits that should allow me to better pace myself still in the first lap next time around.

Firstly, had the temperature been ten degrees cooler I might well have lapped the third as quick as the second, maybe even the first but it wasn't and it wasn't something I factored in as much as I should have. Secondly, I realised that just because I 'felt pretty good' after one lap, didn't mean my HR monitor was lying and that I had paced myself well ... I had still gone off a touch too hard and that I should consider feeling 'pretty good' after one lap doesn't mean you'll still feel 'pretty good' for the third. I'll trust the HR monitor a little more next time and not be so hesitant to pull back a little just because I feel good at that moment.

Still, I finished, and after I stumbled across to the kegs of cold water and emptied one bottle over my head and another into my gullet, I felt good. It took the majority of the drive home with the air con on full-blast to cool down my overheating body, but by the time I sat down in the pub a few hours later, I was pleased that I had gotten around once again and that my result was a steady improvement on previous rounds. Given my relative lack of training time, I can't complain too much. Once the pain subsides, I can't help but be glad I'm doing these races and look forward to the next. But only when the pain subsides and I catch my breathe again!

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