iROC - 18th April

The iROC race was new in the calender and promised to be a mental as well as physical challenge with 6 races over 2 days.

As we set off for the first fell race the pace was much faster than the plod I'd been used to and my legs were heavy by the end.

The next event was a set orienteering course which I was too slow on, I'd misunderstood the instructions and didn't realise everyone's map was correctly printed for the course they had to cover so everyone had left the start area before I got my head round it. I don't think I'd refuelled properly since the first race and was dehydrated by the finish.

Making amends for the next stage by eating and drinking lots, I placed well in the score event and was soon on my bike for the night time trial this was a blast and the downhill we'd run a few times during the day flashed by at night, the last minute change to the running order meant the fastest went off first so there was no traffic to contend with which was a relief on the narrow sections.

Part of the changes I hadn't appreciated was an extension to the last event of the day, I night fell race. It was supposed to be about 40 minutes which ordinarily I would cope with easily without food and water, I hadn't counted on it being lengthened an hour and the build up of fatigue during the day caught me out so I bonked on the second lap and struggled in completely wrecked.

Sunday was 4 timetrial on the bike which was good for me in comparison to the running events although I had a slight problem when my handlebars came loose - retightened them while riding up a fireroad was interesting (note to self, racing a bike you only picked up the previous weekend and significantly rebuilt the day before isn't recommended!). In the later stages I missed the line into a gully after overtaking someone and was slam dunked into a rock garden, thankfully the bike wasn't damaged and I was remarkably unscathed so finished the stage 6th.

Inov-8 were sponsoring the event and by popular demand brought there current range of shoes up from the warehouse on the Sunday after selling off older models on the Friday and Saturday I picked up a new pair of RocLite 315 to replace the 2 pairs I'd trashed over the previous year.