Rookie Goes for 4 in a row at Ironman UK Week 4 of 28

Areet?

So after 4 months of being ‘on the piss’ then ‘seeing the light’ and switching back to training every day since the 1st Jan, (which has so far gone very well) The time came yesterday to head out onto the IMUK bike loop for one lap of the ‘brutal’ 47 mile circuit to see what would happen.

I ‘ummed and arrrred’ about this for several hours…..

Why???

Looking out the window from the warmth of my kitchen, the trees were already at right angles to their roots before I had even thought about strapping the bike to the back of the car.

Fuk it…… It’ll be ‘fun’ to beat myself up for a few hours, it’s a great ‘test’ and ‘it’s good to do something a little bit off your head sometimes’, I thought to myself.

Let me tell you something….

There is a difference between ‘being a little bit off your head’ and down right insanity….

Make no mistake….

This was the latter….

Going out onto that loop for my first outing in months in freezing cold, 25 mph headwinds whilst it thrashed it down at the time of day I set off was the dictionary definition of insanity right there.

Don’t get me wrong, the first half of the circuit was fine, I even had the wind on my back up the hills of Breightmet – ‘lovin this’ I thought to myself.

But once I got to the Grane Road, several thousand metres above sea level, the skies turned black, the temperatures dropped to sub zero, the wind ramped up to gale force, the rain pelted down and I got the worst kicking I have ever had on a bike to date.

I am amazed my bike didn’t snap in two it was that cold.

Further round, when I got to the top of Roman, I could hear the wind making noises I thought only ever happened in films.

The forest of doom finished me off and I limped up it a broken man.

Once I got to Sheep House, it was now pitch black (my own stupid fault for setting off at 2pm but be aware darkenss falls approx 2 hours earlier than everywhere else round these parts) so I made the decision to abandon the attempt on safety grounds, sticking to the relative safety of the bright lights on the main road into Bolton instead.

The clock was already well over 4 hours by this point and I reckon I still had another 30 minutes left to do.

That is at least an hour over the minimum standard required to make the cut offs at Ironman UK.

No doubt about it…..

That bike circuit broke me today…

How much of this is down to the course being ‘brutal’?

How much of this is due to me going out in gale force winds and sub zero temperatures like a loon?

How much of it is setting off at a stupid time so a few hours in I am unable to see?

And how much of this is down to me being a fat bastard after ‘living it large’ for the previous 4 months?

The coming weeks will give us the answer to those questions and more still….

Let’s have it right though, If the weather is anything like that on race day, then 70% of us are fucked….

I’ll be honest with you….

Right now, part of me is wondering if I can be arsed with all this again….

Yet the other part of me…….

It wants to fight….

What will happen???….

Time will tell…..

Next update…..Sun 9th Feb

Here is the strava link to this ride (For some reason I switched my strava off once I got to Bolton in protest) www.strava.com/activities/3065177294

To understand why I keep entering IMUK click here www.iron-rookie.com/4-in-a-row-imuk-1-28/

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