Anerley 50

[Jon H]

Not a very inspiring day yesterday for the Anerley 50. Heavy rain overnight meant the roads were still pretty wet first thing, and it was damn windy. Lots of people had decided that their duvets were more inviting, so a fair few DNS.

My mission was to beat my SCCU 50 time of 2:10:24 to improve my SCCU BAR average speed. Keith Coffey started 3 minutes behind me, and I held him off until halfway up Tollgate Hill at 7-1/2 miles. Tamar had started 2 minutes ahead of me and I could see her on the Tollgate descent but couldn't catch her until the road had flattened out again. From there all the way to the Southwater turn the average speed got lower and lower as the headwind took it's toll. Went through the 25 mile point in about 2:06 so I knew I wasn't going to accomplish the mission. My motivation took a nosedive and the HQ was much more appealing than another lap, so I climbed off for an early bath.

Mike I did a similar time (2:15) to his SCCU outing, but this time without a 19 minute late start penalty. I think Rob R-E did a 2:09, and I didn't see what Tamar had done.

[Tamar]

I didn't hang around for the official results so don't know exactly what I did. I needed to improve my 50 time to stand half a chance of retaining the SCCU women's BAR - Debbie Percival has gone significantly faster than me this year as I have only recently seemed to have found my form again.

But I had a good ride on Saturday and did a 24:29 on the Q10/30, and on top of the good 100 I was feeling confident and motivated when I lined up for the 50 on Sunday morning....quite a novel state of affairs for me this season.

Sadly, the minute I began to pedal, I realised my confidence had been entirely misplaced. There was absolutely no power in my legs and no matter how hard I tried my pulse rate remained so low I may as well have been lying in bed. At the halfway point, like you, I realised there was no way I was going to better my previous time. I carried on though - for punishment I guess - and crawled despondently over the line in about 2:22ish. According to Keith, Deb had improved on her previous time and did a 2.13 so I now need to work out what I'll need to do in the 25 to take the BAR. If it's even remotely feasible then I'm going to cancel my entry to the ACC 10 in order to be fresh for the 25. But I suspect it is out of reach this year. Ar&e!

[Mike I]

Ooh, that was a bit breezy all the way back from Broadfield to Southwater; and the second lap was even worse. I'd like to have seen Hutch do a 1:35 in that. End result - two or three minutes off what I was hoping for.

Still, as Jon said, I managed effectively to remove from my SCCU BAR entry the time I spent limping back to HQ on a soft tyre and scrounging a spare wheel off George in the SCCU 50. That should put me ahead of Snoop, although I now have to do the 25 to finish the job.

For the first time in a 50 I did the second 25 slightly quicker (about 20 seconds, I think) than the first 25. I'm not getting any quicker or fitter, but at least I'm pacing myself better .

[Andrew G]

Save yourself for the 25 Jon .

Very good times considering it was bloody windy yesterday.