6th October 2011
Congratulations to Marcus for a brilliant result at the ITU
Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in Las Vegas.
Marcus finished 9th
in his age group and 48th
overall in the Age-groupers. A fantastic result.
A proper writeup with pics of the man in his GB leotard to
follow soon but in the mean time, here’s Marcus ripping up the Nevada tarmac
during his warm up ride.
Go Vegas!
29th July 2011
Andy L's report on the Bontrager Twentyfour12:
Lying
in my tent one evening, awaiting the subsidence of the twin pulses of Belgian
techno and Belgian super strength beer to admit sleep to my person, I began a
feverish dream. A feverish dream of racing bicycles, racing bicycles in England;
indeed, racing bicycles in England in
sunshine. The solution was obvious: to race the twentyfour12 down at Newnham
Park, nr Plymouth, only this time not on my own.
Then the dew came down and the crashing started. First
Steve B, not content with loosing a fight with a badger some days previously,
experimented with poking a big hole in his calf. John, struggling with a rather
lengthy stem began to attempt front flipping the bike out of the bombholes.
Greasy polished roots also claimed many in a smorgasbord of bruising.
During the night, the course turned eerily quiet. Apart for
Celia, who seemed to manage to attract some sex pests. This less then desirable
issue was solved by her removing her granny ring and simply outsprinting them.
With dawn struggling through the early morning haze, it was time for the march
to the line.
No 24h event would be complete without last-lap dramas.
Accordingly, Ant’s pedal made a bid for freedom in attempting to masquerade as a
field gate. However, on recovery for the second time, it became apparent that
the pedal could not be reconciled to a future spinning in circles, and a last
ditch bike swap was necessitated.
Drama aside, everyone had fun, and the LVIS teams were well
satisfied with the weekend’s work. 4th in cat for LVIS Warnock
Painvagen, 9th in cat for LVIS Gold. I’ve upgraded my email account
storage in preparation for twentyfour12 2012 already.
18th July 2011
Tim J and William both completed the Etape du Tour act 1 in purple and gold style on a day of stunning conditions and baking heat. In the final climb up Alpe d’Huez, Tim took a 7 minutes lead over William, but for these LVIS members that was not the real result of the day. In the post-event Strawpedo race, William finally put an end to Janisch’s decade of dominance. Janisch, gallant in defeat, did admit "It’s true. This was an unofficial overseas event, with no marshals or proper time-keeping, but Gilabert did pip Javendish by about 0.05sec". All’s fair in cycling and strawpedos.
15th June 2011
For the second year running, LVIS sent a small but intrepid team to the Finale Ligure 24hr race in Italy. Paddy T put together this video of the whole trip.
Andare Vegas!
LVIS go to Finale Ligure from
Paddy T on
Vimeo.
18th March 2011
John's report on his recent Ultramarathon glory.
Last weekend was the 3rd and final event in the Might Contain Nuts Welsh Winter
Series of Ultramarathons. In contrast to the previous rounds of 30 and 40 miles
where the conditions had been less than balmy (gales/sleet and snow featured
respectively) this weekend provided ideal racing weather with broken sunshine,
light winds and no precipitation.
Having done battle with the M4 on a Friday and reaches the Wye Valley sometime
after bedtime a large portion of chips was consumed in Alf Tupper style and a
place in the bunkroom secured for a brief night's sleep before boarding coaches
to the start at 5:45am. Having discovered that eight other chaps were inhabiting
the bunkroom I was resigned to the certainty that at least one would be an
internationally renowned snorer. However, against all the odds everyone slept in
silence and many zzzz were accumulated.
The day started at 4:30 when the first of those in the bunk room decided that
this was an appropriate time to begin preparations for the day. How long does it
take to put on some running kit and eat a bowl of goop? About 75 minutes it
would seem. On the coach and registration was taken in traditional school trip
fashion and the late pupils their given their race numbers along with everyone
receiving route maps. It wasn't lost on those present that a coach trip of well
over an hour from the finish to the start through non-flat countryside was going
to make for a very long day indeed. But at least we'd be within crawling
distance of food and bed at the end.
At this point I should state that the organisation of the whole event was very
slick. However, the organisers did make a huge blunder in providing
portaloos at the start; because no sooner had the coach doors opened than a mad
dash commenced for half the field to get in line to park their respective
breakfasts! For those of us who take a minimalist approach to race kit kicking
your heels for half an hour is no sufficient to stave off the cold and there's a
distinct possibility of looking like a berk warm-up running for an ultra (says
the bloke in the bright red tri-suit).
Once the toilet queue had subsided we lined up ready to go. Having had the whole
journey form London to consider race tactics, and bearing in mind my first round
blunder of haring off at the front and missing a turning I reminded myself to
stay in the lead bunch until 1/2 way and then take stock. I should point out
that a little appreciated fact of fell and ultra running is that being faster
than everyone else is actually a disadvantage when you're heading in the wrong
direction ..... With that thought in mind I headed off at the front in close
company of another runner who was clearly more used to running distances
measured in metres not miles.
Having got our navigational error out of the way within the first couple of
miles I congratulated myself on getting myself into a position where a
substantial proportion of the field were now strung out ahead of me providing a
pretty clear indication of the route. Things progressed very nicely for the next
5 or so miles as worked my way steadily into the top 4 runners and settled in to
chewing cereal bars, sipping water and swapping life stories.
I ran most of the middle part of the race with Mark Cooper who I'd met and been
narrowly beaten by in the first round. We managed to navigate pretty
successfully between us and whilst he usually eeked out a small lead on the
flat/hard sections I would do the same on the steep ups & downs. Having
convinced ourselves that we were being very sensible in our pacing we were more
than a little surprised to find that we'd nearly been caught by the checkpoint
at Bluith Wells. Despite a concerted effort to push on in the rolling hills out
of town we were caught by 3rd place man, Robin Houghton, shortly afterwards and
all the feelgood sensation of cruising along at the front of the field
evaporated.
I now had the uncomfortable truth to face that Robin Houghton had caught us so
was clearly feeling strong and Mark was a much faster runner on the flat so
would likely beat me in the closing stages to the finish which were much more
horizontal. A 3rd place finish now looked very much on the cards along with
running 15 miles whilst looking over my shoulder and fending off closing
runners. And everything hurt a lot.
I managed to stay with Robin striding along up the last big climb of the day and
seemed to find a small gap along a long traverse over Banc y Celyn. On the long
steep descent in to the mile 41 checkpoint something unexpected happened in that
gravity took over and I found myself struggling to put one foot in front of the
other fast enough to avoid a faceplant. The upside of this was that I'd gapped
the other two to the extent that I was out of sight. Even I'm tactically astute
enough to recognise a break when it jumps up and pokes me in the eye, so the
only thing for it was to leg it for the final 8 miles or so and hope.
It's surprising what the lure of a finishing line and the prospect of a cup of
tea and warm food can do but I did manage to make it to the finish without being
caught. I can even reveal that I enjoyed the experience, such was the quantity
of adrenaline in my system. It turns out that I also squeaked the series win (in
no small part due to the injury of Barry Murray I'm afraid who it seems likes
falling off mountain bikes when he's not running very quickly).
You can read the official race report on the Might Contain Nuts site (below).
I'd thoroughly recommend taking part in one of their events which are just the
right mix of great value, friendliness, enthusiasm and thorough organisation.
Anyone fancy putting together a Vegas team next year for the team prize?
John
Race Report and
Results
29th February 2011
6th February 2011
More
congratulations - even better ones - to Rus and Jo on the birth of
James . Mother and child doing well while Rus has managed to keep
himself going with pork scratchings while in the close attendance of a
medical team just in case... The purple and gold babygrow is on
order...
4th February 2011
Congratulations to Marcus M on his qualification to race at the 2011 Long Distance Triathlon World Championships in LAS VEGAS! Yeah Baby!! Go Vegas!!! Marcus can count on home support and will undoubtedly be flying!
30th January 2011
After a hugely successful inaugural event in 2010, the now world famous LVIS Audax returns for 2011! The same mix of fine roads, great atmosphere and most importantly, fantastic cake is back on Sunday 27th March. Full details are available in the Events section and at the main Audax website audax.lvis.org.uk but the basics are explained in this video.
Some time was also spent on the publicity photos for the event with a team of LVIS members recreating the famous smoking cyclists photo taken in the 1900s.
