Open Adventure Coast to Coast
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men
Liam Drew / 28.08.2009
[Liam Drew describes his race on Day 1 of the C2C, and it was a very successful day as he won, beating the best team by 30 minutes and his nearest solo competitor by 36 minutes.]
Apparently sometimes actually come to fruition ;-)
Day 1 of the coast to coast started off reasonably badly (for me) with the cancelling of the first paddle leg from Whitehaven to St Bees, and it being replaced with a cliff top run.
Starting off at a reasonable pace, I immediately dropped into follow-the-leader mode, following the crowd up a long flight of steps and along the tops. I slowly started picking people off, dropping down to St Bees with 3 or 4 people visible in front of me.
A swift transition onto the bike and I was off on the route that we recce'd last week when we were up, jumping onto the coast to coast cycleway I seemed to be making reasonable progress, passing a few other cyclists, checking I was on the right track with a walker, and nearly taking out a dumb golden retriever.
On the roads towards the transition I pulled in a guy that I figured was in 2nd, and could see another ahead. Slowly reeling them in I took a short cut following one, pulled out onto the road, and BANG - sodding tubeless tyres! This tyre had been a git to get on, and I was not happy I was going to have to fix it.
Despite my misgivings, the tyre goop everywhere, and having to use tyre levers for the first time in years, I managed to get it sorted, and got back on the bike on a mission. Overtaking a couple of people I ran into issues with support crew vehicles not being particularly sensible about heading in. Dropping the bike with Barry and Heather I got my BA on, threw the kayak on my shoulder and headed for the get in.
There were a few boats on the water, all heading further left than I thought was strictly necessary, so I headed further right, getting pushed along by a nice little squall, pushing me past most of the others.
Overtaking a double getting out, I chased the only other person I could see. Overtaking him, he told me he was leading, so taking another 5 minutes out of him on the 2nd lake, I headed onto the run with a cushion.
Looking back halfway up the hill I was amazed not to see anyone chasing, but assumed they were heading a different way. A long walk up the hill and then an out and back to a marshal sheltering behind a cairn and still no-one in sight, sweet! Down, up and down again saw me at Dalehead Tarn, where a photographer said he could see no-one else … so thoughts of winning the day started to set in.
Up the ridge onto Maiden Moor and the weather set in. SERIOUSLY! I got shotblasted by hail for about 10 minutes along the top, got very strange looks from all the walkers huddled in groups against the weather (seriously, they thought I was mad?), and ran down off Cat Bells in a 2-6 inch deep stream of water.
Once off the tops, the weather improved, and I got to swim across a flat calm Derwent Water. Coming out, I was informed by the crowd (well 3's a crowd right?) that no-one else was in the water, which was great to hear as my adductors, hamstrings and quads all cramped on me all the way to the finish line, which apparently I approached too soon, and from the wrong direction for my support crew to get a photo!
Kev came in a couple of hours looking good, and sounding positive despite the downpour he ran through and the freezing lake he'd just swam.
SleepMonsters
