Saved by Jelly Babies!

The Dave Lloyd Challenge was certainly that, although with a few days rest the pain is fading. This was easily the hardest bike ride I have done due to both the length and steepness of the hills and the total ride distance. I remarked to a friend before the ride that I was hoping to get a bit of practice climbing “out of the saddle”, i.e. standing up on the pedals to get more force. I am quite poor at this and I fatigue quickly so have been adding it to my riding over the past weeks. Boy – did I get some “out of the saddle” practice; I must have spent over 60 minutes out of the saddle with tiring thighs. At one point my motivation was to not get off and walk like some of the people I was passing, that seemed to do the trick and I made it up every hill. I am not sure how long the ride was supposed to be but we added a good 15-20 minutes due to getting lost after a few signs went “missing”, I finally clocked up 177Km in 7:49Hrs of riding. This averages at 22.4Kmh (20.5km if I include the stops) which actually puts me in good shape for l’etape, or at least for getting to the final elimination point of l’etape before the broom wagon. The l’etape cut off speed is as high as 21Kmh but as the first 150Km only comprises 1900m of climbing then I should be OK as averaged 26Kmh in the Hampshire Hilly Hundred which is comparable. If I plan to save energy for that first 150Km and average 23-24Kmh then I should be in good physical shape for Ventoux.

The scenery on the Dave Lloyd was just magnificent: The steep slate hills and quarries with sheep wandering around aimlessly (and dangerously on some of the descents!) made for some great pictures.
Unfortunately on the drive home over some of the same hills we were in the cloud with almost zero visibility and I was unable to take any worthwhile snaps. The whole area reminded me of summer holidays in my youth when we spent every summer in this part of the world, the views and familiar smells were charming.

During the ride I was focussing on not going out too fast and not hitting the hills too hard early on, the goal being to have enough energy to keep going at the same pace throughout. I think this worked although I did go through a bad patch between 110Km and 140Km where I was very tired and unable to do my fair share of the work on the front. A few handfuls of jelly babies seemed to revive me sufficiently to push harder on the last two climbs before the finish. My heart rate monitor estimates that I used up 6000 calories in the ride which equates to 1.5Kg (or 3lb) of carbohydrate, or 40ish energy gels!
I am not sure where that weight comes from but I had two meals that night and have been eating like a horse since. One of the goals of the ride was to get nutrition right; It was definitely better than last time but still not there yet. I couldn’t get down the flapjacks and in the end the hastily bought jelly babies saved me. For my next ride I shall try Mule Fuel Hanza Nut bars which I tried on a ride to work and it seemed quite easy to digest. My HR Monitor also says my average heart rate was 134bpm which is quite low and my max was 158bpm which is very low (for a high). This does confirm that I took it a bit too easy on the ride and have some more to give on the Mt Ventoux!