The Stinger

The Stinger

 I picked up two fellow University students Pete Robinson and Seb Lloyd on Sunday 19th Feb morning and drove out to Newnham Park for this year’s edition of the Stinger.
If you are unaware of what the Stinger is, it’s an off road duathlon that consists of a 5km cross country run, 20km cross country cycle and a 3km hellish fell run.
Sounds lovely right?! That’s why I can never work out why it is always a sell out!
Maybe it encourages runner types to have a go at race which incorporates the bike where they won’t be completely down the pan, maybe it’s the challenge of a tough race where you can be proud of yourself for finishing or maybe people just enter for the sheer enjoyment of romping around the beautiful Newnham Park without the risk of getting shot at!

We arrived a little late (my fault) and soon got ourselves together with the bikes and shoes strategically placed in the transition zone ready for the a jelly-legged change over.
I would like to take moment to thank fellow team mate Harry Smith for lending me his bottle cage as I had stupidly forgotten to equip mine and left it at home (I’m blaming it on being the first race of the season).

I took my place on the start line with 100 others and tried to find some reasoning behind the impending hell I was surely to enter; usually I have a few pre race butterflies but on this day I was just asking myself what on earth I was doing here. I am by no measure a runner, I did cross country at primary school because let’s face it, everyone did! I used to have a yearly 1500m outing during secondary school because nobody else wanted to do it. The only running I had done since then was the previous year’s Stinger when I ran for Harry Smith as I had a broken thumb.

The "Easy" Run
Armed with less preparation than last year, the whistle went, Martin exploded away on the quad and I started putting one leg in front of the other. I started at the front because I thought to myself that even though I would be over taken by every man and quite possibly a dog I will at least finish the run quicker than if I started at the back.
The run consisted of one bike lap which took in some of the usual Newnham features; up the cottage return, around bluebell woods, through the bomb holes and down the field to start/finish area.
I didn’t lose too many places on the first fire road before starting to ascend cottage return and to my surprise I started to actually pick up a few places! I overtook team mate Gary Andrews and shortly after overtook also team mate Maddie Horton as well as a few others.
However, my joy was short lived as on the first fire road Gary came back past me and I have the feeling I was holding people up in the next single track section as about 6 people came past me on the next fire road section including young Certini – Fully Sussed whippet Harry Forshaw. I didn’t lose any more places after this though and reached transition buoyed with a very good run but lost about two minutes on most others as I tried to stay on my jelly legs whilst changing shoes and donning a helmet.

The Bike
I jumped on my bike out of transition and put the hammer down as riding a bike is what I specialise in!! Within a lap I caught up and passed Gary and Harry and earlier on in the seconds lap I had overtaken Maddie.
I continued to blast my way around the bike laps and came into transition in 6th place with my sister Juliet Long getting quite excited next to me in transition offering to tie my shoes laces for me. I declined her offer and started the run along as I had nobody close in front or behind.

The Extreme Run
The first few hundred metres of the run were nice and flat but I knew (from experience and knowing the Hortons) that it was all about to change.
Sure enough I was pointed through a river by Lisa and Rosie Andrews which I almost belly flopped into courtesy of a stumble just before it. Up the other side was a monumentally steep. My legs which up until this point had been fairly fresh died within 10 feet of vertical ascension. I ended up crawling up bits of it as my thighs screamed hell Mary. I even briefly considered rolling back down again but the sight of Duncan Baldie at the top spurred? me on and he pointed me in the right direction which was first off flat, allowing my muscles to get some oxygen back into them (or what little there is at that altitude)
The next section of the run was off camber and through uncharted woodland, that Columbus would be proud to discover. With nothing more than a few bits of course tape tied onto tree branches to aim at, I soon discovered why Columbus was nowhere in sight as my leg went out knee deep into a bog! I carried on navigating my way through the deadly bogs (they eat shoes you know!) and rivers.


I finally came to some fire road, only to be pointed up another monstrous bank! By this point my legs were completely shot and I pretty much walked up it with the occasional burst as I gave everything just in case there was someone closing fast behind me. I finally reached the top of the bank and mercifully looked down to see that there was nobody in sight!!
The next section of the run was along the ridge of the bank which was littered with tyres, leaves and branches. I am amazed that the Horton’s didn’t fashion a Marines style tyre run for us to go through!
The ridge soon turned extremely off camber and I started to lose my left foot as it slipped away every 5 steps or so. After 5 minutes of this I reached a final steep bank which praise Vishnu was going down! It was then only a short distance along a fire road to the finish!

I was so pleased to come in to the finish without relinquishing any places on the final run and took my free mug from Martyn and went to get my duly deserved free cup of tea

Thoughts on the Course
I thought the course was good but to be honest you can blindly throw three darts at a map of Newnham Park, join them up and you will have a good course! That’s how great the venue is.
I would have preferred to have gone down the cottage return instead of slogging up it but I guess it means we’ll go down it at the SW champs (hint, hint). The benefit of going up the cottage return was being that we had to go through the river single-track the other way to usual which I think flows better.

Race Bike

 My main race bike for the 2012 season will be a Specialized Expert Carbon Epic 29er. It isn’t top of the line but is still made up of quality stuff but trades price for weight unfortunately; as Gary Fisher once said, “strength, price and weight, pick two”.

It weighs 11.78kg (26lbs) to be exact, the one up side is that it costs half as much as an S-Works and considering that I’m a poor student, that's no bad thing!

One of the first upgrades I will make to the bike will be to change the wheels, swapping the Roval control wheels to a personal favourite of mine (at least in the 26” version) Hope pro 2 hubs with Stan’s Crest rims.

The reason I am such a big fan of the Hope Hoops is because they have somehow been able to find a way of building a wheel set that (in proportion) is strong, cheap and light. I have a pair of them on my Specialized S-Works Stumpy HT and have literally hammered them for two years and granted they have a few tweaks in them but nothing to the degree that physics dictates they should!!

One of the reasons I’m picking a 29er full-suss bike is that as I mention above, I still have a 26” hardtail so I don’t see the point in getting another hardtail. I want to try and mount a serious podium challenge at some endurance races this year and I know from experience that a 26” hardtail with 90mm of travel on the front is not the most comfortable! You could argue at a 29” hardtail would be as comfortable as a full suspension bike whilst being more efficient but quite frankly, a full suspension 29er provides the most fun you can have on a race bike!!

This years steed

As well as the wheel upgrade, I will increase the small ring size by a few teeth on the crank set as I found that last year was that my performance up the hills wasn’t what it was in the previous year and I think that I could quite easily cope with an increased gear ratio despite the bigger wheels to get me up there quicker. Also, I will change the stem to a 80mm stem for comfort purposes and will possibly change the handlebars for some titanium ones. I have a KCNC titanium seat post as well that I will sub in for the stock seat post to save a few more grams.

Hopefully my modifications will bring the weight down by at least a kilo and give me a bike that is competitive in races. I do plan to race my hardtail more this year as the only time I raced it last year was at the National Champs when my full suss 29er would probably have been better! I would have raced it at Margham, the perfect course for it but due to my injury I wasn’t able to, my team mate Jay Horton raced it after his bike was stolen during the night and he finished sixth on it!!

I’m pretty excited to use the Formula brakes, I have a set of Formula The One’s on my Cube Fritzz and I actually had to change the front rotor from 203mm to 185mm as they were just way too powerful and I had a tendency to come close to going over the bars every time I twitched my fingers!

Component	Description
Frame	FACT 9m Carbon front triangle. 29” Geometry M5 Aluminium chainstays & seatstays
Rear Shock	Fox/Specialized remote Mini-Brain, new 2012 tune
Fork	Custom RockShox SID 29er Brain
Stem	Specialized XC 90mm
Handlebars	Specialized XC flat 680mm
Grips	Specialized lock-on
Brakes	Formula R1 160mm F+R
Front Mech	SRAM X-7
Rear Mech	SRAM X-0
Shifters	SRAM X-9
Cassette	SRAM PG-1050
Crankset	Custom SRAM carbon S-2200
Chainrings	38/24
Wheelset	Roval Control 29 Alloy w/DT Swiss super comp spokes
Front Tire	S-Works Fast Trak 2Bliss
Rear Tire	Specialized Renegade Control 2Bliss
Saddle	Specialized Phenom Comp
Seatpost	2014 Butted alloy

The items that are in bold in the above spec are the items that I will be changing and the ones in italics I will think about changing.

Once I have given it a good thorough test I will write another post giving my review of the bike!

Keep your eyes peeled!

Rich

Nutrition

Nutrition
Nutrition has been my focus of late, mainly due to the desire to reduce my fat content and become leaner and hopefully meaner as the saying goes. I invested in a set of a kitchen scales and really started paying attention to what I am eating, trying to eat better foods and the right amount of them.
During my sailing days we had numerous lectures on sports nutrition but it is a bit different sailing as you’re out on the water for 5 hours a day at the very least so you needed more complex carbohydrates as opposed to simple carbohydrates. For those of you who don’t know, the difference is that complex carbohydrates release energy slowly over a period whereas simple carbohydrates release them quickly.

One of the immediate things I noticed when I started weighing my food is how little you need to reach the recommended allowance of 2000!! I have unscientifically set my target at 2200 calories but tend to fluctuate by about 200 either way.
The key dietary change so far has been reducing the amount of frozen food I buy and replacing it with proper food. Instead of buying turkey burgers and chicken dippers I have bought more proper meat in the form of chicken breast and pork chops. It surprised me how you have fewer calories from proper meat but you get so much more out of those calories in terms of protein and carbohydrates than you do from frozen processed meats.
Also, I have started eating more potatoes and rice in place of frozen chips and occasionally subbing vegetables for beans. But let’s face it, beans are awesome!
In the morning I have switched to porridge for most of the days of the week instead of a sugar cereal and if I am riding to work throw a banana in the mix. I will generally have cereal or jam toast at the weekends.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time
The worst thing for going over the calorie budget is snacking! I generally don’t tend to snack that much but sometime I need something to tide me over between lunch and dinner or dinner and bed. It is generally common knowledge that crackers with some peanut butter are a good snack to fill you up. The only problem is that I absolutely hate nuts! Whenever I am offered something with nuts in, I turn it down and usually face the question “are you allergic?” To which I have to explain I’m not allergic, I just despise the taste.
I decided to buy small tub of peanut butter at the weekend and I will attempt to convert myself if not learn to tolerate the taste for the huge nutritional benefits. I ate a small finer lick yesterday and I am already regretting the challenge I have placed upon myself!

Coming soon
In other news, the Stinger duathlons is only a few weeks away and I should hopefully be taking possession of my new bike this week!!  I am looking forward to getting the bike and putting it through its paces.

More on the new bike in the next post!