KW - Wargrave

The moment Sam W. decided this ride was a bit too fast for him and decided to do his own thing I suspected I was in trouble.

I haven’t ridden with Sacha before but just seeing him riding in the first few kilometres I knew he was a strong rider.

Still, “third is the worst I can do in all sprints in this ride”, I thought. That was my natural positiveness and optimism in action.

An optimism that lured me into taking turns at the front with my riding mates.

Not my wisest move. Why would you do that if you know that you are in trouble?

I got away with it though. At least until the coffee stop. 

As soon as we got to the first ramp after Wargrave I was going backwards. Not long after I signed Sacha to pass me and told him to carry on, I was going to drop and ride solo. 

Now, on my own. I set a crawling pace home.

Unfortunately for me GC Denis and Sacha waited for me at the end of Drift Rd. 

“Third in the sprint I thought”. Not sure who took it. I was literally minutes behind.

Despite words mentioned indicating otherwise, I interpreted their gesture of waiting for me as noble, friendly and caring.

They slowed down the pace, allowed me to sit at the back of the trio, and looked back every now and then to make sure I was still there.

And I was. For the most part. Every now and then a gap opened but they waited for me. Over one of the bridges GC Denis opened a gap. Sacha stayed with me and rode in front of me to close it while GC Denis slowed down. 

I was so impressed that I decided I was not going to sprint at the final sprint. And, believe me, I don’t make such a decision all that often.

As soon as we got to Sunbury-on-Thames GC Denis moved to the front and upped the pace. I was at the back holding for my dare life.

He kept accelerating. Going faster and faster. My heart rate was going up and I was starting to get excited.

But I told myself: You have been sitting on their wheel for the last 25km. Don’t sprint. It wouldn’t be good sportsmanship, it would be bad for your reputation, it wouldn’t be fair. Leave it up to them.

We passed the mark I use to start my sprints and I stayed at the back. Ready to enjoy the show.

Sacha moved to the right and accelerated. Somehow I was still on his wheel. 

Next thing I know is I was thinking: “Fuck it, I’m sprinting”.

And I took it. Not my best sprint. Definitively not my most honorable sprint, but I took it.

This was an expensive ride from the reputation point of view. I’ll be lucky if Sam W. doesn’t report me to the Kingston Wheelers committee for false ride advertisement (I posted the ride as K2.5, it felt to me as K1.5, although it probably was a traditional K2) and that final sprint probably destroyed any possibility of anyone thinking that I am a fair sprinter…

But that sprint made it up for being third at Drift Rd. Totally worth it.

The ride in Strava (my longest ride in three months!!!!): https://www.strava.com/activities/17731174062/ 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

KW - An east to west

This is what I posted in the Kingston Wheelers forum:

***

Description of the ride in JFW's words.

An east to west

Cobham - dorking, coldharbour, peaslake (coffee) and home up staples?

Will be gentle as we are now (technically) still runners.

No GPS route provided. My lawyer friends recommend that I remind you that this is a route led by JFW. Swear words might be used during the ride. Impressive sprints might be witnessed, unheard of bonks might be experienced. Join us at your own risk.

***

From that description there are two things you can be absolutely certain of. 

The first one is that I had no idea where we were going. That seems to be something JFW took from our trail running days. Running or riding without a defined route is a form of torture. You are always at mercy of others. JFW used that trick to torture me everytime we went trail running and used it again today. 

The second one is that no one joined the ride. It was just JFW and me. 

I am not totally surprised though. I’m guessing everyone knew my lawyer “friends” are not that great lawyers. Take one example, they failed to mention how much JFW can talk.

God, the man can talk!

Look, I know I am a quiet man. By the time we got to Esher, around km5, I already had said everything I had to say for the whole day. And that was a huge mistake, because from that point on JFW monopolized the “conversation” the whole way.

Believe it or not that is a sign of how bad my form is. The way I normally deal with this situation is upping the pace and forcing the person riding next to me to shut up. That was not possible today. To make things worse my natural Spanish politeness forced me to give him answers now and then which only kept the “conversation” going. At a certain point it became torture. 

Completely lost, my brain at the edge of exploding, this was becoming one of my worst days on the bike… Until I recognized a bit of the road. We were going down to Shere.

Aha! After 65km completely lost I finally knew the way home!!

To make things even better my legendary situation awareness detected JFW’s weakness going up Combe Lane. He was going quiet.

That was my opportunity! 

And I took it. You bet I took it.

I was unable to attack him. We were climbing at snail pace trying to hold some MTB riders’ pace. But I was able to do something even better.

I started to talk to him.

Not only that, I started to talk to him about Zwift racing.

Oh man, did I enjoy the situation?

I went on and on about the advantages of riding a Canyon in the Richmond circuit, the best way to use PowerUps in a race, and the best way to train for Zwift races. All made up. I have almost no knowledge about Zwift racing but I knew JFW was clueless and definitively not interested. That was my revenge. In cold blood. Fully conscious of what was happening.

By the time we got to Cobham he gave up and asked for a timeout and a stop at the gas station.

Look, my lawyer “friends” are average at best. They got it wrong, there were no sprints today, they got right swear words were used during the ride, mostly at the time of reaching the top of a climb, but they nailed the “unheard of bonks might be experienced” prediction.

One of us bonked big time. Just outside of Cobham. Barely 6 km from home.

I didn’t sprint at Esher’s town sign.

That’s what a nice, compassionate, riding mate I am.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17719063705 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Paris-Brest-Paris 2027 Starts Here

From my lowest point since I started cycling. 

The graph shows my CTL for the last 6 months.

Today I hit 6.8. That is very, very low. When I broke my left femur in 2015 my CTL dropped to 11.4.

There is a big gap between 11.4 and 6.8. I was at 11.4 on the 7th of February. To get down to 6.8 you have to not ride for another 23 days. 

To those of you that are not into CTL and are having problems to understand how low 6.8 is let me illustrate it for you: My starting point is so low that my butt hurts. 

My butt hurts after a 15km commute. That is how low my starting point is. 

18 months to PBP2027.

The ride in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17578914525 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Seville Marathon - Official time 4:01:27

Disappointed doesn't even start to describe it.

I had said: I’ll be happy if I go below 3:30 and the closer to 3:20 the happier I’d be.

I went aggressive at the beginning on purpose. I knew I’d have to slow down but I wanted to give it the best shot I had. My plan was to stop running and get back to cycling in preparation for PBP2027. I wanted to set a sub 3:30 PB that I could be happy with.

At km 37 my right knee went, the tendon on the outside. Unannounced. Unexpectedly. Without any warning I had to stop running and walk. Funny enough in front of a friend that was cheating for me.

Walked for a bit. I started to run again and very soon my left leg failed. That was unannounced, it felt just fine all day. But that was not unexpected. My left leg had been playing funny for a while, forcing me to be careful during the last few weeks of training.

Had to walk all the way to the finish. 5 kilometres. 1 hour. I tried to run a few times but not even jogging would work. 

1 hour with my head down, hearing people shouting my name, and runners patting my back.

I managed to “run” the last few meters but couldn’t make it sub 4 hours.

It will take my over inflated ego a bit of time to recover from this.

The run in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17408177134

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Kingston bridge + Hampton Court bridge loop

 

Untuned with myself. Not a feeling I’m used to. Not a feeling I’m comfortable with.

The plan for today’s run was to dress as I’m planning to dress for the Seville marathon. Same shoes, shorts, shirt. Same amount of gels (an amount I wouldn’t dare to confess). 

Run to Kingston bridge as a warmup. Free pace. Based on feeling. Not allowed to look at the watch.

Then, from Kingston bridge to Hampton Court bridge (around 5k) run at what I thought would be my marathon pace. Again, only based on feeling. Not listening to podcasts or music. Not allowed to look at the watch.

If I were successful I should be able to run back from Hampton Court to Kingston at the same pace.

As you can see looking at the run I wasn’t successful. By the time I got to Hampton Court I knew I had gone too hard. Worst of it I knew I had started too hard but I didn’t feel that fast.

To make things even worse my left leg was feeling a bit funny. Something that started after last Saturday’s marathon in the trails (https://www.strava.com/activities/17165873979) and it hasn’t gone away. Who would have thought that a marathon on the trails was probably not the best training for a road marathon three weeks later…

I could have run back to Kingston and tried to adjust my pace but the niggle in my left leg made me think it was safer to call it a day, jog home and try again tomorrow.

The jog back home was 30 minutes of feeling sorry for myself. I was feeling slow, I knew I hadn’t been able to pace myself, and I felt fragile. Not sure which one was worse. Not the best news two weeks before Seville.

And now, I look at the numbers in Strava and I am hugely surprised. I wasn’t expecting it. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know a pace of 4:36m/km is nothing to write home about, but, for me, it is huge. It is a 5k and a 10k PR, which, even if I never really targeted those distances, is significant. 

So, yes, I wasn’t that slow (for my level) but I still had the feeling of not being able to pace myself and being fragile. And that makes me feel untuned with myself. Not a feeling I’m used to. Not a feeling I’m comfortable with.

Exactly two weeks for the Seville marathon now. The fear of starting too hard and legs falling off too soon is now planted in my brain. Not sure if that is good or bad. Doubts start to creep in.

I’ll give it another go tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll get better.

(Apologies for the self-pity report)

The run in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17236438503/

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

(cancelled) South Devon (trail) (almost) Marathon

Dumb & Dumber

That is the only way of describing it. 

As we were leaving the hotel, around 7:15am, already in the car, we learnt the event was cancelled.

My first reaction was “fine, we go home and we run tomorrow”.

JFW’s was “nah, let’s go to Dartmouth, grab a tea and we go for a run here”.

I’d swear he said 10 miles.

Despite my strong personality and the suspicion that I was being tricked, I agreed to the plan and that was it.

Nothing would stop us.

A local telling you that if you leave the car (my car) at that place it won’t be there in an hour? Move the car half a mile inland and stick to the plan.

Strong winds and big waves giving you the (salty) shower you didn’t get at the hotel? You keep running.

Heart breaking images in Torcross when you realise how hard the houses were hit by the storm? You keep running.

Only stop running if you need to walk up the hills and to have a pee (I lost count of how many pee stops I had).

To be honest the conditions were not that bad.

Yes, a huge wave surprised us in Torcross and put water up our calves (so much for running on gore-tex shoes), it was windy enough to have to be very careful at points and it rained enough that you wouldn’t care anymore. Certainly conditions that justified the cancellation of the event but, still, good enough to enjoy the experience.

But we still were dumb & dumber. I’ll let you decide who was which.

“Oh, look, a lighthouse over there". “Let’s go and visit it”. “But it is out of the route”. “Yeah, let’s go there anyway…”

“10 miles and 2 hours running”. “Let’s carry on for a little bit”.

“Oh, this bit is slippery…” next second Javier is down, then JFW is down and Javier goes down again…

“How much further do we go?”. “Just a mile and a half”.

(3 miles later) “Oh, look, the boxes from what was a checkpoint. They have bananas and crisps (who knows what else)”, “Yeah, we are fine, we take something if we need it on our way back”.

“Half a marathon and 2 hours and a half running”. “Ok, let’s turn around, I am starting to get cold”. “I’m not cold, I'm having great fun”. “Don’t talk to me with your positivity…”

Of course, the boxes from the checkpoint weren’t there by the time we were returning, but that wasn’t a problem. I had enough gels to survive for 15 days and JFW had a pack of gummies. Enough for him to also survive 15 days.

By the time we were back to Torcross the locals were already working on the reparations of their houses. It felt wrong to be there running.

We jogged back to the car, now with tail wind, and we called a day. 

We didn’t quite make a full marathon.

Dumb and dumber.

The run in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/17165873979

More pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NVmxB1uRhR8p1Mjr7

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González

Reverse La Belga loop

Why did I run it in reverse?

I woke up around 9am, which, to me, is fairly late.

But I went to bed yesterday at 2am, which, to me, is very, very late.

I also had drunk a fair bit. Which, to me, means I had drunk around three glasses of wine. 

All this to say that when I woke up I didn’t fancy going for a run.

I still put my running shorts on. That is one of the brain games I play with myself. Taking tiny steps in the right direction.

I had breakfast while I was wondering what to run. I couldn’t make up my mind. I didn’t feel like running.

Lethargic was probably the best way to describe how I was feeling so I had a coffee while looking outside. It was a cold but sunny morning. It would have been a shame to miss the opportunity of going for a run.

That is when the idea crossed my mind. Probably triggered by the caffeine. Run La Belga loop in reverse and it will feel like running something completely new. If it feels completely new it is easier for me to relax, just run slow, enjoy the run and focus on not getting lost.

Boom! 

Five minutes later, almost two hours after I woke up, I was out of the door enjoying the jog.

Happy to report I didn’t get lost a single time.

A very nice way of starting the year.

The run in Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/16901636765 

Take care of yourself

Javier Arias González