Battle of the Braes

 As I’ve said before my season has not really gone quite how I thought and hoped it would but things are on the up! It seems like a waste not to put all my hours of training to use so I’ve entered some single discipline races just to see how I fare against single sport athletes. I’ve entered the Stirling 10km and most recently I raced Stirling Bike Club’s Battle of the Braes, and it really was a battle but I finished.

Battle of the Braes is recognised as one of the hardest Regional A races around,  very little flat riding you either seem to be going up or down and neither is easy when the roads are pot-holed and really rough, there is never any time to lose concentration or you’ll end up on the tarmac. The race route consisted of 1 large fairly rolling lap and 3 shorter much harder hilly laps.

My first impression of the race was it started very fast, was very buys and I felt very uncomfortable in such a large group but also wondered how I was going to finish while yo-yoing of the back. These feelings were short lived, soon as we hit the first of the hilly laps many of the racers got shelled out the back, the group virtually instantly became much smaller and a higher quality of rider seemed to emerge. I basically sat in the group for the majority of the ride but this was more though my inexperience getting boxed in and pushed into the side so it made it really hard to get to the front or get in a breakaway. I initially thought the race was going to be around 80km mark but to my surprise I crossed the finish line at the 102km mark, 8min behind the winner. I rode for all the way till the last half lap with the front bunch then on the 2^nd last real climb just didn’t have enough left in my tank to go with the jump in pace as the rest of the racers started to smell the finish coming. My main issue was I didn’t really bring enough food with me for the whole race, but even if I had enough I’m not sure I would have taken it while being so focused on racing, I was having a blast. After I got dropped I soloed my way to the finish, it was really hard and on the final climbs my legs felt like they were going to explode.  I thought it would be a shame to drop out of my 1^st road race so the hurt was worth it, not to mention I have always thought as long as I’m still breathing and conscious the race isn’t over till I cross the finish line. My final result was 27^th across the line, Second  4^th Category rider, I felt my result was very good seeing as over half the field of 80 riders didn’t finish the race which made me feel much better about getting round even if I was dropped. Here’s a couple pictures taken by Robin Wilkins and Owen Philipson respectively. 

Image courtesy of Robin Wilkins

Image courtesy of Owen Philipson

Coming up next I have 2 French GP races and my 1^st Ironman 70.3 in France, Stirling 10km and potentially a Cross Country mountain bike race. 

Edinburgh Open Water Swim Festival

I will keep this one pretty short. My first swim race in an extremely long time, probably around 5 or 6 years. It did not disappoint swim racing was just as hard as I remember it being. Open water swimming is so unpredictable and never really easy which is what makes it so appealing to me. Onto the race, 2km point to point, starting in Mussleburgh and finishing in Portobello. I’m not going to lie it felt a lot longer than 2km and the buoys being fairly far apart gave the never ending feeling right till the end which finished fast! Basically the race was really fun because it had only basically 2 requirements go from point A to point B, keep the buoys on your left and first across the line win.

I swam well in my opinion. I was leading the race the whole way till the last 100m where a real swimmer, not a triathlete, sprinted past me. He was so fast that I couldn’t even jump on his feet, weather this was cause he was much faster than me or because he drafted off me the whole way and got an easier swim I’m not sure but boy was it frustrating, it’s part of racing though and maybe I should have sat on his feet. He crossed the line only 5 seconds before me which over a 25 minute race which is not a great deal. I was the 1^st male senior and 2^nd over all so all in all not a bad day, topped off a hard hill reps run in the morning.  A big thanks to the Edinburgh Racing Co-op for putting the event on, great to see so many enter a tough event! 

Laggan Wolftrax, Mountain biking, Acupuncture and an Aussie Guest.

After my adventure at the Durty Tri I’ve been feeling the need to push my limits a wee bit, so I’ve been doing a lot of mountain biking with the usual crew. Starting to feel pretty awesome on the mountain bike now, most of the trails I really struggled with maybe only a few weeks ago I am tearing down now still supporting some epic bails thought, but falling is a good sign of pushing on and improving cause clearly hitting stuff a little more hot or taking a more technical line.  Anyway here is a quick clip I put together of Laggan and a pretty cool picture.

Mark and Chris MTB at Laggan from Rory Downie on Vimeo.

Me and my flatmate Dan have had a new face around the place, the Aussie Stuart, from my French Grand Prix team, Les Tritons Meldois, has come to visit for the week to get some swim miles in and just for a change of scenery. Seems to just be happy to be in a country where the majority of people speak comprehendible English, using the term majority because I reckon there are a lot of chavs out there that just speak absolute gibberish which loosely resembles English. He’s had his 1^st taste of Scottish mountain biking and it is quite a bit different from the trails at home in Australia. Mountain Biking up Ben Cluech, The highest of the Ochils Hills near the University of Stirling offers one of the steepest climbs in the area and arguably the best descent in the Stirling area. He crashed pretty hard near the top which I can only describe as spearing the ground face first, cracking his helmet and some big bruises to quad, knees and his forehead.

Stu and Bob at the summit of Ben Cluech.

Even after a major bail Stu was still keen to experience some more Scottish trails. Just in today  after an extremely muddy and wet ride in Callander where we were in the unexpected company of Stu Thomson the guy behind MTBcut, was pretty cool to see him ride, the guy was incredibly good just rolling or gapping over stuff I crawl down in comparison.

From one extreme to another, I went for my first acupuncture appointment last Friday and it was a strange experience. I somewhat secretly enjoyed it. I noticed quite a big improvement in muscle tightness but whether this is mental or actually physical I can’t be certain yet so didn’t hesitate to book another appointment to see. 

Finally here’s a quick video my dad put together from the Durty Triathlon. Not the best quality but a nice little video capturing the experience of the event nicely!

Durty Triathlon 30th July 2011 from Gavin Downie on Vimeo.