Long time no Rat you might say. Well I’m back with an update on all Team Rat’s news from the past few weeks.
In the last episode we were looking forward to our trek into the heart of Essex for the Brentford 10km race. The race was pretty good apart from a couple of nasty hills near the end. Mostly it was great arriving at a race accompanied by three blonde females, especially in Essex. All of our times were respectable with the finish order being Kat (from Oz), myself, Keel and Trinks and all within about 4 minutes of each other.
Our trip to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands was my first ever holiday based around training for a race, and we both managed to get a taste of what it is like to be pro athletes. We were based in a small town called Costa Tesguise and managed to get in a huge amount of cycling and running and a lot of bodysurfing too. The island is really nice although, as expected, the wind blew about 50-60km per hour every day. The island is volcanic and as a result very hilly. All of this made for tough riding conditions but after meeting Werner, the mad German, nothing was going to stop me from riding hard every day. Werner is a former pro-cyclist who rode 200km most days and proceeded to drag me over every volcano on the island until my legs gave up and I would head home. It was great to get back to work so that I could relax. It was an awesome break though and I would recommend a holiday there to anyone (October is not windy by the way).
The next adventure for Team Rat was set in a soggy forest in Sussex at the 10km and 21km Milland Valley trail races. For Kate (junior Rat) and Kirst it was to be their racing debut in the 10km event. For Kate it nearly ended in disaster soon after the start, when a particularly muddy puddle/swamp decided to claim her newly washed running shoe. Eyewitness accounts of the incident indicate that a human chain of 3 other runners was required to extricate Kate from the mud, fortunately Police divers were not needed to recover the lost footwear although it was at one stage considered by Steve who had been seconded in to assist in the salvage operation. The two debutants and Steve who was also doing team pacemaker duties in the 10km event finished strongly in “not last” position.
In the longer event Keel, who has a severe mud phobia, Trinks and I ran together until the 15km mark when the psychological edge that I had gained over the girls by continuously lying about my heart rate and splashing mud onto them, allowed me to make a decisive break. The girls although incredibly experienced half marathoners (both first timers) were unable to recover from this surge and I powered on to finish at least seconds ahead of them. David (Mr Marathon), a possible recruit to the Ironman ranks next year, finished in an excellent 1hr45min and 43rd place.
In between races the kilos continue to fall off the body and go onto the bike computer and I am now really keen to get to Florida. It is rather difficult to stay motivated as I am probably in good enough shape now to finish, the next 6 weeks will however make the difference between finishing on hands and knees or doing cartwheels. I have also started dreaming about having my first beer after what will have been 25 alcohol free weeks. It will be a pleasure to cut back on the dozens of supplements massage oils etc. that fill my life at the moment. And to all of you that have been so patient with my non-existent social calendar, thanks and not much longer until we can tackle the left over beers from the last party.
In the next issue, tales of blisters from Cambridge, the return to the venue of the seasons first race at Eton and the extended team takes on the New Forest Marathon (not another forest). Also tales from a weekend in the Peak district (why are these hills following me????).
To err is human to really foul things up you need a bike!!
Lab Rat
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