XCRacer - On Tour: Day Four, Hatching A Plan


We had a little bit of a lie in this morning, it was about 9am when we got up. It was a little chilly at first but soon warmed up.

The morning was spent having another planning session. If this is the amount of planning which goes into a 24hr race I would hate to have to do it for something like Iditabike or the Arrowhead, I’m not sure my brain could cope with that. Fortunately Carole appears to be much better at the planning and organising than I am and is keeping me on track. The basic upshot of the planning is that we have realised that we have a) far too much caffeine and b) not enough gels, or not ones without caffeine in anyway. There was a period during my last 24hr, the 2013 WorldChampionships in Australia, when I had a very dodgy stomach and with hindsight we think this may have been down to an excess of caffeine.

 Difficulty: Low
Difficulty in the middle of the night when 17hrs worth of tired: More
Margin for error: None

We have also been trying to work out a rough calorie-consumption estimate per lap and then work out how we can get this much into me, in an easily digested form and minimising any longer stops while still be able to get hot food at the points of the race where it will be coldest.

Planning went on until well after lunch, and then I took the bike out for a few more laps of the course. It’s not actually marked out yet, but I can remember the lap from the 2012 WorldChampionships pretty well (I went round it often enough!) and have been practicing that, trying a couple of different kinds of tyres and suchlike.

I have also spoken to Elena in more detail, I didn’t realise how badly hurt she was, there is no way she is going to make it here for the team race. This unfortunately just leaves Jon and I, having so far failed to persuade anyone else that a 48hr is a good idea. This idea is now very much on the back-burner, if it happens great, but the main focus is a decent result in the solo 24hr, I will be really disappointed not to get a top 10, and hopefully a top 5. Talking of really disappointed Ritchie has sent his regards to all here, must be gutted to be missing it all, get well soon both of you.

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