12 hours is a long time...

...on a bike.

Another old cycling story for you this week.

Time trialling in the UK is a sometimes strange scene.  Take for example its "Best All Rounder" (BAR) Competition.  It's a competition over fixed distances of 50 miles, 100 miles and 12 hours with your best ride in each for the season counting towards your final average speed.  Not much in the way of an "all-rounder" in there!

Anyway, in 1999 I was having my best season ever.  I'd finished a 50 in under two hours and a 100 in just over four.

Now, I'd ridden two previous 12-hour events - in 1996 and 1997 but had taken neither particularly seriously recording around 230 miles in each.  1999 was to be different though as I was flying and had eyed up a top five position in the Welsh BAR contest, beating my previous best of ninth.

The "12" was to be held four weeks after the 100-mile race and I completed three rides of over 150 miles as preparation, tapering off nicely with a full week and a half of rest before the big day.  I meticulously rebuilt my beautiful Cannondale and Campagnolo race bike, servicing all the bearings and fitting a new chain and tyres, and set myself a target of 250 miles, well within my capabilities that year.

Now time trialling is a numbers game.  You manage your effort so you cross the finish line on empty. Get it wrong and you either go too slow or blow up completely before the finish.  And the 12 is a master class in management. Pacing is important, but more so is getting your feeding right.  And for that I had Lisa, my then girlfriend, and a schedule worked out so I got a bottle of fluid and some food every hour - just enough to see me through to the next feed.

The Welsh 12 is run off on a mixed kind of course.  An out and back leg from Abergavenny to Hereford followed by a number of circuits around Raglan and Usk (the Chainbridge circuit) before finishing on a, well, finishing circuit around Abergavenny.

After eight hours on the hottest September day on record in Wales, I'd covered around 175 miles, well on course to reach or even beat my target.  Barring disaster.

And what a disaster it was.

After five laps of the initial circuit, Lisa was told by the race coordinator that I'd gone onto the finishing circuit when in fact I was on my sixth lap of Chainbridge.  When Lisa was not there at the feeding point, I panicked.  Firstly, I was worried about her, and secondly I was beginning to run out of energy.

it was all going so well...

By the time Lisa had worked out I was still on Chainbridge, I had by now been transferred onto the finishing circuit, so we missed each other again.  Cue even more panic and a body now running on well past empty to the extent I had to stop altogether.

A friend from my club who had come up to watch the end of the race drove past and luckily stopped. He took the juice his two then small daughters were drinking off them and gave it to me so I could get going again, but I was still worried something had happened to Lisa.  It was then that I saw her thankfully and everything was OK.

Well except it wasn't.

I don't know if you've ever completely emptied your body of all its fuel, but I can tell you it's not a pleasant experience.  So, when I tried to eat and drink something it all just came straight back up.  I could barely ride in a straight line and I reckon I lost just over an hour before I could safely get going again.

Of course, my target was blown away along with all my hopes of a top five spot in the BAR.  I finished with just 227 miles - well short of my target and what I was capable of, and another ninth place in the Welsh BAR.

I don't blame anyone.  After all, it's just sport and not important.  But all that planning and training.  It really hurt.  

In more ways than one.