Bay in a Day - My final word

The biggest question to come out of Sunday’s ride for me was – what caused my slump in performance? I mean normally I would say the conditions and the distance would have hurt me, but riding with the other boys and seeing them looking so strong while I was struggling badly made me think it was more than that. I’m at least as well trained as them, in fact I’ve probably been on more training rides than any of them, and we’re all about the same level on training rides. So why was I so far behind on the ride?

My list of possibilities:

1) I’m slow

Could be true.

2) I hadn’t trained enough

I don’t believe it. I’m pretty sure I had put in more hours and some extra longer harder rides than the other three guys who had no problems. And when I consider the volume of training I’ve done over the last few months, even by itself it should have easily carried me through.

3) I hadn’t tapered enough

I thought it might have been this when my legs were feeling so sore during the ride.

I had done hard rides both days last weekend, a hard running session on Tuesday and by Friday night when I walked home over the bridge my legs felt pretty shot. Then I rode around the city of Melbourne for a couple of hours the day before and swam and ran as well which maybe didn’t help.

However I don’t quite think that was it. I didn’t have any major volume and took it pretty easy in the week. All my efforts on Saturday were very low key.

4) I’m no good on the flats

While my light weight helps me go well on the hills, I did notice in the first couple of hours of the ride that on flats or slight downhills I was unable to coast, I literally had to keep pedalling the whole time to keep up with the other guys. Which I guess when you add it up means I was doing a lot of extra pedalling with really no rest on the legs. And without hills to even things out, maybe that puts me at a disadvantage? But then again the other guys have to push more weight the whole time, so I think it’s a spurious excuse for me to think it’s a factor.

5) My hydration and nutrition strategy was poor

Bingo. This one seems like the main problem in retrospect. 2 litres of fluid over 5 hours of riding 120km in blazing heat was not a good start. I thought about it all beforehands, but just didn’t monitor it closely enough during the ride. It was quite stupid of me, I needed to get a lot more fluid in and probably eat more, and more regularly.

Every time I had a major slump, when I would eat and drink a lot I’d suddenly feel 100% better a few minutes later. However I think by being underdone for the first half I just set myself up badly for the second half - I’d always be playing catch-up on a day as hot as Sunday.

I thought I was wise to nutrition and hydration, but that just shows me that I need to have some sort of system or plan in place for how much I eat and when I eat it. I had a strict plan for the marathon and stuck to it and it worked a treat. I need to pay as much attention to developing and sticking to a plan for every endurance event.

6) My brakes were rubbing

Oh yeah I forgot about this one. I got in the lift of the hotel after the race and when I lifted the front wheel off the ground to get it into the lift I noticed that the front wheel wouldn’t spin freely. Sure enough the brake callipers had been moved so that one of the brake blocks was pressed firmly against the rim! The only time my bike had been knocked was on the flight, so I may have been riding for 220km with the front brake on. That would definitely have added to my fatigue. Who knows, it might have happened after the race or it may have been on the whole time, but it’s a possible explanation.