PBP consisted of 2 days of howling rain and a headwind to Brest which then turned into a crosswind on the way back, awful. My hopes were high but I was still nursing a tender achilles from the 24 - so my plan was to go steady and still hopefully get in between 60 and 65 hours(in 2003 I did 69.48).
So much for the plan, my steady start meant I lost the fast bunch from the off - they just nail the first 140 Km's. So I found myself in a group that wasn't going at a pace I wanted to go at - it was a bit slow, the result was I ended up riding alone for long sections of the ride - not ideal with a headwind.
My other problem, and this was worse than 4 years ago, was my inability to stay awake at dawn, so on two of the three mornings I found myself cuddling up to a hard wall on the outskirts of some remote village in France - just for 30-45minute catnaps.After around 750 Km's my left knee hurt like hell, tender just to touch, and this really slowed my progress again (I could feel the achilles but at least it wasn't going to be my nemesis this time round). Due to my slow start, I was playing catch up by reducing the time I was allowing myself to sleep. First sleep at brest - 3 hours (I'd hoped for 4-5), next sleep was at a place 220Km's from the end -
a dreadful place, but the rain was cold and it was 2 in the morning, again 3 hours sleep(I'd planned to have 5 hours at my second sleep).
I really should have just pushed on to the next stop - where there was good food, but hindsight is no good now. The 3 hours sleep only did one thing and that was to make my knee stiffen up even more. The push from Villaine to Mortagne de Perche (88Km's) was very hard - I rode all the way alone, and it took me over 4.5 hours! And this on roads that are really not too lumpy compared to the rest of the route.
From Mortagne I had 140Km's to go. At my current pace I was looking at a ride of 72 hours or more. Maybe it's my tt brain taking over but I swallowed the pain and pushed on, by the next stop after 71 k's I realised that I could just beat my previous time and had a very short stop before nailing it to the finish - any uphills were very painful, but I pushed as hard as I could on the flats. Coming into the finish there are at least 20 traffic lights - it was also rush hour and I
didn't want any time penalties for jumping lights or to end up squashed by a French truck. I finally got to the finish according to my watch I had finished just 3 minutes quicker that 4 years ago. The current official time has me at exactly the same time as 4 years ago! Almost unbelievable to go that far and end up with the same time.
Result of all this: I have to now go back in 4 years time and beat that time just to prove that I can. The extra experience should help to put together a good time next time. A friend of mine from Twickenham, he was second in the 24hr AND HASN'T DONE ANY OTHER RACING BEFORE THIS YEAR!! (I did my 300 and 400 qualifiers with him and I always felt I was slowing him down), finished in just over 50hours!!(I think that only Gethin has gone quicker). Amazing. I think he should do the 12 next year - definitely huge potential.
I have only done 8 or 9 tt's the whole year and in 4 years time I'll only do 100's as preparation for PBP - it really does take up the whole season.
By the way the pic attached was ridden over the whole route by a mad Englishman dressed in a beret, stripey top and three quarter length trousers mad!
Paul I think we all need to go and have a lie down!
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