Napoli Cycle Trip

For the past few years, I’ve taken a week long cycling trip with a group of friends to various places around Southern Europe and North Africa. The concept of these trips is simple: find an airport where British Airways flies to (as BA take bikes for free) and is likely to have some good weather, book the first and last night’s accommodation there (so that we can store our bike boxes for the week), and then cycle a 5/6 day ride around the region. This year we chose to go to Naples and explore a route heading east passing through the Monte Picentini and Gallipoli Cognato National Parks before heading back to the Amalfi Coast.

Given that Naples sprawls for miles and miles, we took a train out to Salerno to avoid having to deal with the city traffic and started the cycling from there. The region by the coast is dominated by Mount Vesuvius that, in AD 79, erupted and famously engulfed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The volcano has now been dormant for almost 70 years and remains an impressive backdrop to the area.

Leaving Salerno and heading towards Melfi, we were soon at well over 700m on the quiet roads through the Monte Picentini National Park. Being day 1 and feeling fresh, we were able to climb these hills with relative ease and arrived in the town of Acerno for lunch. One thing we have refined over the years is the amount of luggage we take; quite simply a pair of trainers, change of clothing, toiletries and some tools is adequate for a 5 day trip. We each manage to fit all this into a small rucksack or panniers attcahed to the seat post, and pick up any food and water en-route; this leaves the bike light and easy to control that is particularly beneficial when you’re climbing and out of the saddle.

Having left the tranquillity of the National Park, we joined a main road that took us towards Melfi, keeping a steady 20 mph for couple of hours as we capitalised on the gradual descent that we had earned from the morning’s climb.

It seems that every town we visited in Italy was on a hilltop, with Melfi being no exception (c. 500m). This meant that the first 10 miles of day 2 were dispatched fairly quickly, before climbing for the next 40 miles towards our lunch stop at Tolve. Having refuelled, we were ready to take on the 3 significant climbs planned for the afternoon, which involved about 1400m of ascent and 45 miles of cycling.

We’d planned our route online in advance (www.bikeroutetoaster.com) and had downloaded it on to a Garmin. This meant minimal time was spent looking at the map and deliberating over which direction to go and this proved to be a great asset to the trip. However it can mean that you rely too much on technology and loose sight of where you actually heading. Having just lost about 300m and clocked up a decent 35+mph in the process, we realised the route we’d planned had us on a motorway and the only option was to return to the top of the hill and take a different route. You can always trust the map though.

We finished the day at Pierterpertosa just as it was starting to get dark, shattered but also slightly apprehensive about tomorrow’s epic cycle.

It was naive to assume that staying overnight at 900m meant a downhill start, quite the contrary. Over the course of the next hour we hit the high point for the trip at 1200m as we cycled on small roads that wound their way through the trees in the Gallipoli Cognato National Parks. This was cycle scenery at its best. Although, being on quiet roads comes with two issues: firstly, pot holes occasionally appearing and needing to dodge; and secondly, dogs guarding their owner’s property, again occasionally appearing and needing to dodge.

The hills were relentless, not once over the course of the morning were we on flat road. Instead the roads wound through tunnels at most 500m long, through more hilltop villages and we were finally beaten when the gradient hit 1:3 and had to dismount. When we stopped for lunch at about 3pm, we exhausted the bar of all their pizza, and demolished a load crisps, chocolate and coke, a staple diet of amateur cyclists!

The day finished with a 30 mile descent from 1100m down to the town of Sapri, taking in the sunset whilst trying our best to keep up with the speed of the cars. 3 days down, 280 miles and 7000m of ascent had certainly taken a lot out of us. It puts a perspective on how impressive the tour riders are who complete, on average, about 110 miles per day and ascend up to almost 3000m in a day over a 3 week period (see some of the 2012 TdF stage climbs here).

In Sapri it was far busier than in the hills and also a couple of degrees warmer. The appetite for cycling had diminished a little by day 4 and, when we realised that once again the planned route had us going down a motorway, we were happy to jump on a train that took us 40 miles up the coast. After a relatively leisurely day of cycling, we arrived in the B&B well before sunset.

The final day took us along the Amalfi coast. All we’d heard about this road was that it was very impressive but also dangerous for cyclists. Ironically, it was the place where we saw the most cyclists of the whole trip and, as long as you don’t mind the numerous coach loads of tourists passing you every now and then, you’ll be fine. The views were amazing and certainly lived up to expectations; much of the road is cut into the side of the cliffs, so it means there are sharp drops down towards the sea as it winds along the coastline. Words don’t really do it justice, check out the pictures and essentially that is what its like for 25 miles.

We completed the trip in Sorrento and then caught a boat across the bay back to Naples. I’m not sure of exact stats for the trip but it was just under 400 miles and about 8000m of ascent; the only mechanical was one puncture between the 5 of us. I can definitely recommend heading to this part of Italy for some cycling, but prepare yourself for some hills!

Summary of the Summer

It’s been a while since my last blog, mostly because I’ve been taking the running relatively easy over the summer and have not had much to report on. Only in the last 3-4 weeks have I felt as though I’m over almost all the niggles left over from the London Marathon and my bike crash. Given it’s taken so long to recover form the London Marathon for the past couple of years, I may not run it in 2013 so that I could give myself a shot at the track next summer. But that is a long way off, so I’m not making any decisions until December at the earliest.

The A-Bot

I’ve had a few low-key races over the summer: a couple of corporate races in London and a 10k in the south of France that I ran whilst on holiday there. At the end of the France race, I was interviewed in front of the crowd at the presentation where my French stretched as far as “Yes, it was very hot. And yes, I enjoyed watching the Olympics - Christophe Lemaitre is very good”. It did make me think that perhaps a post-race interview could be something to introduce at presentations at races in the UK, where perhaps the male and female winner could be interviewed about how their race went.

The cross-country season will soon be upon us and I’m planning on racing as many of the Met League and Hampshire Leagues as possible. With the odd road race thrown in too, it should be a fairly busy autumn.

Countdown to London 2012

My first post on this blog highlighted the commitment and dedication required by athletes to get themselves to the top of their sport and to earn themselves a place to compete at the Olympic Games. Now, with just 3 days left until London 2012 starts, the athletes are in the final stages of preparation for the Games, there is a buzz in London that something very special is about to happen and everyone is looking forward to witnessing one of the greatest sporting events in UK history.

I plan to watch a lot of the action - the BBC is streaming 2,500 hours of sport on 24 channels over the whole 17 days and there are a number of opportunities to watch the free events such as the marathons and cycle racing. However there are a few events that I am particularly looking forward to.

Men’s Cycling Road Race - Saturday July 28th

Following Bradley Wiggins’ great victory in the Tour de France last week, members of Team Sky will be switching into team GB kit and will be joined by David Miller and Ian Stannard to help give Mark Cavendish the best opportunity to win Gold. The GB cycling team will need to work together to chase down any breakaways during the 9 laps on Box Hill and will need to assemble a lead out train that will launch Cavendish to glory on the Mall after 250km of riding. Australia will be trying to help Matt Goss sprint for the line, whilst Peter Sagan and Andre Greipel, both fresh from Tour de France stage victories, will be challenging for the gold……and that’s assuming there’ll be no breakaways.

Women’s 100m Hurdles - Tuesday August 7th

Up until last week, Sally Pearson was undefeated in 2012 and was odds on favourite for Olympic Gold. However, an in form Kellie Wells took victory at the Diamond Grand Prix in London, clocking 12.57 compared to Pearson’s 12.59. I still do not doubt that Pearson will win Gold, she is world lead this year, showed the potential at Deagu last year that she could challenge the world record and it would be great if she could achieve that in London on August 7^th.

Men's Triathlon - Tuesday August 7th

Triathlon is a relatively new Olympic sport, having been introduced into the programme in Sydney 2000. This year in London, there will be some significant sibling rivalry as Alistair and Johnny Brownlee take on the rest of the world, as well as each other. Johny goes to the Olympics off the back of a number of ITU victories, while Ali has been training his way back from injury with only one race (and victory over his brother) under his belt. And training to be the best at triathlon takes a lot of time: apparently the Brownlee brothers train 35 hours a week across running, swimming and cycling.

Men’s 5,000m - Saturday August 11th

The growth in the depth of 5,000m in the last 10 years is staggering; 18 out of the top 25 times have been set in since 2003, and 230 out of the 300 sub 13 minute times have been set since 2000. Britain's best hope of Gold lies with Mo Farah who, with a pb of 12:53 set in Monaco last year, goes in to the race as one of the favourites. The 5,000m can be run tactically and can result in a burn up over the last 800-1200m or can be won from the front. Mo has proved that he is capable of winning whichever way the race goes however, with Bernard Lagat, Tariku Bekele (Kenenisa’s younger brother) and Dejen Gebremeskel in the line up, expect a competitive run from the gun. 

Of course I’ll be interested in a whole load of other action: 

- Will Michael Phelps become the most decorated Olympian ever if he wins his 19^th gold medal?

- Will Usain Bolt retain his 100m and 200m titles?

- Will the in form Christophe Lemaitre cause a shock in the 200m?

- Will Paula Radcliffe capture the only medal that eludes her?
- Will David Rudisha set a new World Record in the 800m?
- Will Rebecca Adlington win both the women's 400m and 800m freestyle?

- Will Gabon beat South Korea in Group B of the football?……..

The list goes on, but its certainly going to be a great 2 weeks.

Looking back on the Ironman

Two years ago this week, five friends and I took on the challenge of the Ironman. This was the culmination of 5 years of training: starting with a cycle ride from Kings Lynn to Winchester where we averaged about 60 miles a day, and finishing with all 6 of us completing the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run of the Nice Ironman.

It terms of proudest achievements, this takes a top 3 spot. In terms of toughest things I’ve done, this definitely takes number 1 spot. I used to think that I’d ‘hit the wall’ in the marathon when my split times for the final few miles dropped by 30 seconds per mile – certainly not. Me ‘hitting the wall’ was the inability to run more than 500m at a time, take on any fuel and still have 6 miles of an Ironman marathon to run.

Despite the pain at the time, it was totally worth it and, looking back on the race, there is a small part of me that says there is still some unfinished business with the 10 hour barrier being so close.

If you want to read more about the build up to the event, we kept a log of it all here, and below is a video of the Ironman day itself.

Crash!!!!!!

After 5 weeks of not running, I’d built myself up for my post-marathon return on Sunday 27^th May. The rowing, cycling and swimming I’ve been doing has helped keep a good level of fitness and that, combined with a bit of speed work, should have got me back to running more or less full speed by July.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’d been hitting Regents Park this week on the bike, and Wednesday was no exception. There were loads of cyclists out there that evening and, at one point, the group I was in had got up to 8 people (that is a lot for week night in Regents Park). Anyway, riders had come and gone, and I was in a group of 3 keeping a fair pace. We’d been averaging well over 20mph and it was my turn on the front.

There’s a part of each lap that is gently downhill and the group of us were cycling at 25+mph down this section. In a split second, I remember 3 distinct events: firstly, a car suddenly appearing in my way and me having the realisation that I was heading straight into it; secondly, smashing into the car, being thrown into the air an thinking to myself ‘please don’t land badly’; and thirdly, that impact on the ground, with my immediate reaction to check, and so thankfully feel, that my arms and legs were still able to move.

I was in a lot a pain and my body pretty beaten up, but surprisingly had very few cuts.  I had however left a massive dent in the car I’d hit (I’d love to get a picture of that to see just what impact I made), and I can only think that that the car had taken away most of my speed so that when I actually hit the ground, I was hardly moving forward and hence avoided any abrasion on the road.

The reaction of the public was amazing. Within the space of a couple of minutes, a doctor was checking my breathing, an anaesthetist was making sure my body was completely rigid and was holding my head in a firm position (a major concern about these types of crashes is the impact on the neck/spine from any movement, even after the event), I’d had a load of clothes and blankets thrown over me, my family had been contacted and the ambulance was on its way.

The paramedics arrived, took over, gave me a neck brace, put me on a board (this is a completely rigid stretcher which prevents the body from moving) and took me off to University College Hospital. I had loads of checks on my back, neck and stomach, and remained on the board for hours until the x-ray results had come back and the doctors were sure that there were no spinal problems.

I was discharged from hospital the following day with a suspected broken wrist and very inflamed right quad and glute. Running is back off again and round 2 of the post London Marathon rehab is underway. At least that gives me 4 months until the cross-country season starts!

I am so grateful to everyone that helped me: the guys who I was cycling with (who I’d never met before) that got in touch with my family, looked after my bike and checked how I was doing the following day, the anaesthetist who refused to stop holding my head in one place until the paramedics arrived, the off-call doctor who did a first assessment of my injuries, my sister who came to A&E to hang out with me until I went up to the ward, and all of the people from the emergency services.

Don’t let this deter you from cycling, just be careful and always wear a helmet. I’m certainly going to be back on the bike as soon possible.

This is my front wheel. And below is the car damage

London Marathon Recovery and Regents Park Cycling

I started writing this blog post last week, however due to something that has happened in the last in the last couple of days, I’ve decided to split it in to two. (This will become apparent in the next post).

It’s been a while since my last update; the main reason for this is that the Virgin London Marathon has left me in pieces and hence there has not been much running to report on.

From past experiences, I knew that the marathon would take a lot out of me, yet I was still optimistic that, 5 weeks on, I’d be capable of racing the Bupa London 10,000m on May 27th. In reality, things have turned out slightly different and I’ve not run a step since the marathon due to a tight back and hamstring.

Okay, if I’d not run London, I’d probably be running again by now, but I don’t regret racing the marathon at all, nor do I regret racing any of the 20+ races I took part in from September 2011 – April 2012. Every single one had a purpose and overall they have given me a huge amount of confidence in understanding what I can achieve.

So its meant that the month of May has been a period to let my body recover from running, do some cross training, cycling and concentrate on stretching and gradually build myself up to be able to run again.

With the fantastic weather the UK has had over the last week, I’ve been able to get out on the bike on several occasions, heading out to Box Hill where the Olympic cycle race is taking place, or riding around Hampshire, or heading up to Regents Park in London after work.

Last summer, again while not able to run due to injury, I spent a large number of evenings cycling around the 3 mile Regents Park loop. Groups of cyclists, strangers to one another, tend to form there either when you stop at a red light or simply pick up other cyclists as the ‘peleton’ goes by.

Cycling in a group is a lot of fun and, through taking it in turns to ride on the front, you can switch between pushing hard and taking it relatively easy. In fact, by drafting the person in front, cyclists can save up to 40% of the energy used compared to cycling alone. This really helps you to appreciate why Mark Cavendish is not ‘launched’ off the front of the peloton until exactly the right moment. As a result your average speed is significantly faster that if you were riding solo.

However riding in a group is not as straight forward as it sounds and does take a bit of practice. In order to benefit the most from drafting the person in front, you need to stay as close as is safely possible to their back wheel, while also be aware of any quick changes in pace or positioning in the road. Therefore cyclists have certain arm signals to illustrate to the rider behind whether the group is slowing, for example if there is an obstacle in the road to avoid, or if there is a drain/pothole/poor piece of road surface.

All this works fine and crashes are rare, but its impossible to prepare for completely unpredictable scenarios……

High-5's at the Virgin London Marathon

My lead up to the 2012 Virgin London Marathon had been perfect up to three weeks ago, having felt as though I’d put the right sessions in, got my long run up to 22 miles and felt good racing over 10k and half marathon distances. However picking up a virus and some niggles in my legs during those final three weeks made me feel a little apprehensive about achieving my target time or even running the race.

I decided to go for it anyway and was fairly confident that, once started, I’d complete the 26.2 miles. Lining up so close behind world record holder Patrick Makau and reigning London Marathon Champ Emmanuel Mutai was a little dangerous, as it can be so easy to go off with the pack and go through the first couple of miles far quicker than your race pace. OK, I was not going to keep up with the super elites, but there are often club runners who you can easily be dragged along with and I really didn't want to go off too fast.

I stopped myself from joining a group that looked to be targeting 2:18ish and early on tried to settle into my target 5:20 miling pace as best as possible. At 4 miles, the course turned straight in to the wind, just as Dean Lacy came through and formed a small group along with Ian Leitch and myself. Dean seemed to be happy to take the brunt of the wind and looked very comfortable, while I was finding it a little difficult and even debated dropping off the back of the group.  However I stuck with it, thinking that running in isolation would in fact be far harder.

The crowds through east London were amazing. At about 6 miles, there was an amazing drumming group under one of the bridges where the sound reverberated around and gave me an extra kick at least temporarily, and from the Cutty Sark to Canada Water the road was lined with people practically the whole way, all cheering and supporting. And at this point, I still felt relatively fresh, so could really appreciate everybody’s enthusiasm.

From 4 to 7 miles, we were clocking 5:25 miles, but the pace was upped for mile 8 with a 5:14. At this point I had the choice of going with the group, or running more comfortably and dropping back to a 5:25 pace. I think that through my experience of knowing how painful the final miles of a marathon can be having going out too quick, I chose the latter.

I was now in the rhythm of chipping away each mile and was happy running without feeling pressured to run in a group. I began to run my own race, follow my own watch, and I was now not going to let myself be pulled along at a speed I did not feel comfortable with.

From miles 12 to 19, I began to move through the field, despite my pace gradually dropping from 5:25 to 5:35 miling. I wasn’t overly concerned about this as I continued to feel relatively strong and the main thing was to get to 20 miles feeling good. This year, I made a couple of adjusts to my fuelling strategy during the race: I limited my fluid intake and choose not to take on gels. While gels may replace electrolytes and provide a temporary boost in sugar levels, personally I feel the benefits are relatively small and I find they do not settle in my stomach well. Besides, I’d never taken anything like this during my long training runs in the build up, so why try something new in the main race when your body is not used to?

At 20 miles the course passes from the buzz and mass cheering at Canary Wharf to the relatively quiet Poplar High Street. Running in isolation, hitting the wind and general fatigue, this marks the start of what I found was the toughest part of the race. Richie Gardiner and Erwin McRae of Belgrave were about 30 metres ahead of me and I told myself, at best, to catch them and, at worst, not to let them get any further away from me over the closing stages. I had to settle for the latter as I felt myself gradually becoming more and more depleted of energy running along the Embankment, but I made sure that the gap never got more than 30 metres.

At 25.5 miles the course goes past Big Ben and turns on to Birdcage Walk. Just at this point, I saw my family cheering and gave my sister a massive high-5! Not the most serious thing to do during a marathon, but it at least temporarily distracted me from the pain and gave me a bit of a boost for the home straight.

With the signposts saying 800m to go…600m…400m…200m, it was a case of hanging on as best as possible. I know a sub 2:23 was never going to be on the cards, but with a push I’d hit sub-2:24, and so I pulled out the stops and crossed the line in 2:23:52

I was massively pleased with the time and felt as though I’d run sensibly and this was probably the best result I could have asked for. I know there is still a better time in me, but I feel that with each marathon I run, I understand more about the preparation, pacing, nutrition and just the shear punishment your body has to cope with. The month of May will be time for some proper rest before getting back on it and hopefully hitting a half marathon later in the year.

Mile	Time	Cumulative time
1	5:15.68	5:15.68
2	5:18.88	10:34.56
3	5:09.49	15:44.05
4	5:27.45	21:11.50
5	5:23.47	26:34.97
6	5:25.69	32:00.66
7	5:25.07	37:25.73
8	5:14.39	42:40.12
9	5:25.44	48:05.56
10	5:18.08	53:23.64
11	5:20.18	58:43.82
12	5:29.34	1:04:13.16
13	5:31.94	1:09:45.10
14	5:18.04	1:15:03.14
15	5:13.70	1:20:16.84
16	5:32.80	1:25:49.64
17	5:29.75	1:31:19.39
18	5:31.58	1:36:50.97
19	5:35.84	1:42:26.81
20	5:36.03	1:48:02.84
21	5:44.75	1:53:47.59
22	5:41.13	1:59:28.72
23	5:43.14	2:05:11.86
24	5:36.77	2:10:48.63
25	5:58.62	2:16:47.25
26	5:52.35	2:22:39.60
26.24	1:12.89	2:23.52.49