Jellyman Blog: Etape Mourne - A tough day in the saddle.

Saturday 27th May 2012

Cycling
05:14:57 – 69.38 Miles (13.20 MPH / HR Zone 2 / 73% Max / Cadence 77rpm)

When I entered this event a while ago, I did so on the basis that it said that it was a ride though the scenic Mournes and that there was 1700ft of climbing - which is only about 500M. That didn't seem too bad.

Today rolls around and the heatwave continues. The combination of the warm weather and a few hills should make for an interesting day.

A FEW HILLS!! This was a bit of a beast today for me and there is no way that it was only about 500M of climbing. I am having trouble downloading the data from my Garmin but I reckon it was at least 1500M of climbing.

We started out from the Annalong village and immediately started in to a climb of about 3 miles which levelled out a bit before heading past the Silent Valley Reservoir and park. After this it was a tough drag for about 8 miles and then some little down hills before climbing back up again to the top of Spelga Dam.

The downhill from Spelga Dam was amazing but scary also as it was so fast and the bends and the alpine style switchback at the bottom just come on you so quickly that the brakes were almost locking up at one point. I did realise that at some point later in the day I would have to climb back up this as part of the 2 King of the Mountain timed sections on the route.

From here it was a nice run to Hilltown (yes the clue is in the name!) and then on to Rostrevor. Again, some really nice downhills here too to make up for the amount of climbs.

Coming out of Rostrevor back towards Hilltown was the first of the times King of the Mountain stages. The results show that I did it in 29mins28secs - which was actually very respectable. Next big challenge was the climb back towards Spelga Dam - and even the road out towards the Dam was somewhat of a tough uphill drag.

We reached the start of the K.O.M timed section at the bottom and I headed on up.
I have always wanted to ride up this section of road as I have driven it many times and always been in awe of anyone who could ride up it, with its tough gradient warning sign for drivers and the Alpine style switchback bend.
I have to say that the reality of doing it was no let down as it was brutal, however I am very pleased with how it went and I covered the ground in 11min02secs. This seems to be around the average time and was in fact 1min faster than the overall race winner. I have no idea how I did that. Scary thing is that the fastest ride up it today was just over 6mins. That is FAST!

The rest of the ride was more tough climbs and some sensational downhills.
Unfortunately from about 12 miles from home we were faced with about 9 miles of climbing and then about 3 miles of drop back down in to Annalong.
One of the hardest moments was getting back up the hill from the Silent Valley Reservoir - it was a real ball buster coming so late in the race.

Back in to Annalong and the organisers had laid on a great spread of sarnies and sausage rolls and sausages. Perfect after such a tough day.

The scenery was stunning and the weather just made it look even prettier.

Big credit to the organisers and marshalls for doing such a great job on the first running of this event. It was fantastic Ironman training in the heat. Will I do it again? We shall see. . . .