The Wye Valley Warrior – without a doubt the toughest thing I’ve taken on. It put me face to face with my biggest weakness, climbing hills on the bike and I definitely lost. Ever since I started doing this type of thing I’ve always had a little bit of doubt in the back of my mind that I won’t be able to complete them. Until now, I’ve been lucky but today the luck ran out. Now, don’t get me wrong, I made the finish line, however I didn’t do all 97 miles that I set out to do, instead I had to settle for 85. For those of you not familiar with sportives, when there is more than one distance, the route will split at various points and meet back up again somewhere down the line allowing everyone to start and finish in the same place but meaning the different distances on offer are covered. The reason for the missing 12 miles today was that I missed the cut off time for the final split, meaning I had to follow the shorter route to the finish. This left me with mixed emotions. Partly relief that I didn’t have to do those 12 miles but also disappointment and a little bit of embarrassment that I wasn’t able to finish the job fully. That said, 85 miles isn’t a bad and also I’ve discovered that the Isle of Wight sportive that I’m doing in July is 101 miles, not 95 so that means I’m only 6 miles down on my total and I promise, I’ll make those up before the end of the year, probably at the Wales Cycle Sportive.
Despite the mixed emotions, today has made me realise that I can no longer get away with just saying I’m no good at climbing and do nothing about it. I’m determined to at least give it a shot and see what happens. I can’t get any worse, that’s for sure! The events are coming thick and fast now and I’m looking forward to getting back into the triathlons, especially my first one in Brecon. I did the same one last year for my first ever triathlon so it will be interesting to see how I’ve improved in the last year, especially as I’m sad enough to still have my results page from last year!
Before I go, I just wanted to say thanks to Ben who did the ride with me today. I really appreciate you hanging around at the water stations for me to catch up and only you will understand this, but for not answering your phone after I’d done that hill at 70 miles!
Don’t forget, you can sponsor me if you’d like at www.justgiving.com/huw2013
