Sandy's Blog

Hi, I am getting a bit slack at this blogging thing - have been doing too much interesting stuff and would rather not waste time on the computer (honest!). Most weekends I have been away either north or south to various mountain bike events usually involving a fair amount of endurance, pain and banter!

A fortnight ago I went down to a place called Ellsmere (near Wales) to take part in 24/12, a 24 hour or 12 hour bike race (naturally we had to do the longer one!). In total there were about 14 of us from Edinburgh (3 teams of 4 and a pair), so almost a platoon!
At an event like this, you need to eat lots of energy food (bananas, pasta, bread etc) and remain hydrated, possibly with energy drink. Now eating these sorts of foods at fixed intervals over a 24 hour period will inevitably bring digestive system meltdown. We had one guy chundering, another guy with the shits and I couldn’t stop passing gas regularly until at least a day after the event! In terms of mechanicals one guy snapped his frame - totally gutting really but its a good excuse to get a new one.
Towards the end of the race we were all sat next to the course making up typical 1940’s names for people we didn’t know, and cheering them on using those names - “COMEON HENRIETTA, GIVE US A WAVE!!”, “COMEON HAROLD, PULL A WHEELIE!!!”. You kinda had to be there but take it from me it was very very funny, like wetting yourself funny. Some photos.

Last weekend I took part in a marathon ride from Selkirk, which is one of the Merida 100 organised events. Third year I have taken part and I went round with a group of friends from Edinburgh Uni. Basically they are all pretty fit, especially one guy who was setting a phenomonal pace at the start. About half way round a few of us realised we just couldn’t keep up and had to take it easy. Was verging on getting cramp for about the last hour, but it stayed away. The first year I did the event I finished in 6h 40m, last year 6h 20m, this year 6h 5m with a puncture and an extra 5km (~150m climbing) so not bad at all. I wasn’t riding to race anyone but I did really want to improve on my time from last year!

So anyway, the coming weekend I am looking forward to just chilling out. Got a vague crazy idea to go and visit my grandparents in Dumfries using the road bike to get there - but I’ll see how I feel.