13th October: Grid Iron (again)

My cousin has set-up a group on Facebook by the name of Hot'n Healthy Hamsters to encourage a load of us to get fitter and healthier with the idea that each week we publish our minutes of physical activity. The activity can be anything of your choice from walking to swimming and all we have to do is add up the time. I think this approach is a really good idea as its not a measure of people's ability or fitness stacking-up against one another so it does not matter about your gender, age or size… Its a measure of the effort you are putting in to being healthy.

I have not put any of the marathon times into this as I feel that entering a time for an endurance event is a bit unfair on everyone else. Instead I have put in times so far for training minutes - mostly on the bike.

Speaking of being on the bike, the weekend saw a blank fixture week for footy so there was nothing to do on Sunday morning, and with all the Hook lads away for the weekend on a 'pseudo stag do' there was no-one around to go cycling with, so I decided to head down to do the Wessex CTC New Forest Gridiron once more.

Looking at the website it said it was full, so firing off an email to Dan & Mart's dad who is involved in running the event he said it would be fine just to turn-up at the event and ride-out with everyone else.

The event base this year has changed to a much larger one a few miles to the south from the one used in previous years, as the Grid Iron has become a victim of its own success with 1,000 confirmed riders.

Weghing-up what I had been told I decided that I did not want to put any extra strain on the event, so I drove down to the previous base and set-out from there by myself under overcast skies shouting promises of rain to come.

The route is essentially the same as the previous years I have ridden it, just a different start and end point, so after riding out on to the main part of the loop I was already in amongst all the other riders on the event.

I had decided to head-down a bit later than the official start of the real event and to ride the 60 mile route solo non-stop, something I could do by not being part of the official event as normally it requires you to stop at 2 checkpoints to have your card stamped.

Having loaded the route from the previous year into my Garmin I followed the arrow (and its occasional wrong turns through slow turning of arrows at junctions and crossroads) riding at my own targeted pace.
 
It was great to be on my 'bitsa' bike - my own custom-built hybrid road bike that I constructed a couple of years ago from bits of this and bits of that bought off e-bay and online cycle shops to see if I could get along with a road bike by making a halfway step in the form of a hybrid, and the answer is 'yes I can' and I will now get a proper road-bike organised at some point. I cycled on to the main route into the midst of the riders who had set-off around 30 mins into the event departure time. Joining the steady throng of riders I found myself considerably faster than most of these riders, with most of them saddled upon pretty expensive pieces of machinery, and I enjoyed spending the ride overtaking people, which is not bad considering that when you ride by yourself you do not have the advantage of being in a line of riders and getting a tow in the slipstream to rest. The only time I was overtaken was after the first rest-stop for everyone (naturally I had carried-on past it) where a couple of miles beyond I was overtaken by a handful of very keen club cyclists fully rested from their break and doing their machines justice by steaming past in a train at a good 5mph faster more than I was!

After a wrong turn shortly after the halfway marker that took me on a loop that added another 5 miles to the journey, the heavens began to open and within minutes I was drenched - although mercifully not frozen as the temperature was fairly warm and the wind not too strong. This made me redouble my efforts in getting to the finish and with turning in to the headwind on the final third I was grateful for the podcasts to which I was listening to take my mind off the dour weather.

Some 4 and 1/4 hours after leaving I made my way back to the car park and was able to get changed out of my wet cycling gear. 65 miles is a first for me in that it is the longest distance I have ridden non-stop, and with a bit of sensible fuelling I reckon I would be good to go on an audax 100 mile route.

The purpose of putting the time in on the bike was to prove to myself that I could do it non-stop at a speed over 15mph and to spend some serious hours of a cardio workout without stressing my knees or ankles with the marathons still to come!

I tell a lie, the real purpose of the ride was to get this elusive photo that has eluded me on all the previous Grid Iron rides… I know its puerile, but it makes me smile!

Sandy balls are never welcome!