2012-06-22 - Styrkeproven, Norway

Thought I'd pop something up since it was a bit epic....

Some pictures:
https://plus.google.com/photos/101320035602615375681/albums/5761425356896555233?authkey=CKPho-_i1o_7swE <- Hopefully it works

Garmin: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/195852662
Strava: http://tinyurl.com/bt3ohvb

My time: 25:24:34 21.33kmph (22:30 riding time 24kmph)
Overall place: 1479 of 2580
Sex place: 1383 of 2384
Age class (30-34): 123 of 234 (I'm 34)

Records:
Team Velo Club Zoncolan 2009 with 12:51
Solo male 13:17
Solo female 14:30

I wish I'd written something before a week and a half after the event as a lot of painful memories have already faded....well I think it was painful.

Managed to get the Torpedo wobbly wheeled wonder (bike box) picked up earlier in the week, but not having used one before packing my bike away the night before the flight was a bad idea. The pedals would't come off, the integrated seat post was sticking out too much and I then realised I had to put the wheels in... and I had no confidence in the delrailure not being smashed to bits... very troumatic. Stangely nothing was broken on unpacking. More luck than anything.

Flew to Trondheim, Norway on Thursday afternoon, fitfull first nights sleep. Registered at the race start on Friday afternoon (picked up chip etc), and I got my gears re-indexed at a local shop. At registration I also gave them the bike box to transport to the finish line. Later that evening I decided to watch the first riders leave at midnight... quite exciting, I chatted to a few of the riders which were mostly from Germany and Dutch (although I think 90%+ of the riders overall were Norwegian). The sun in Trondheim was still above the horizon which was really cool. Another bad nights sleep followed, probably the excitement, light and funny single duvets (you get one each) which everyone in Norway uses.

Start times are distibuted every 10 minutes for seeded riders/teams or 5/4/3 minutes for everyone else between Friday 22nd of June 00:00 and 00:30 and Saturday 06:00 - 10:00ish with the maximum time allowed being 36hrs. My original start time was 09:18 but i bottled it and got it changed to the first unseeded time possible (apart from starting Friday) which was 08:00 - which gave me up to 28hrs. We started in groups of 30-60 I think. My bib number was 923 and it appears they were distributed by start time I think - only because everyone around me on the start line had similar numbers.

I started at the back of my large group mostly to see what happens. I stayed with the group until 32km at which point I let them go thinking if I carried on I wouldn't make it to the end. About 5 large groups went past me I think before lunctime... For the whole ride I think I soloed maybe 90% of the time. In the afternoon a couple of big groups swarmed me and past but a couple of times the first six would pass and then I'd get shouted and told to get to the back... even though they were not going fast enough to pass me... it's annoying but I guess once you get passed because you have less wind you actually do less so it feels like your're going slower or you end up matching the speed and going faster. But i filtered to the back and started to get really annoyed... it was a huge group and it was going about 6kmph slower than me riding on my own... Such a large group with only 12 guys at the front were in the same team, it was a concertina mess - stop start at about 21kmph... i must have waited 40minutes at the back before I thought fk it... and rode past all 60....10 minutes later after daydreaming i got caught. I was about 4 from the front when they started rotating at the front... and being a bit crap I tried asking if they wanted me to join in.. the language barrier and me being embarrassed lead me to gun it off the front and just try and get away from the group. Luckily this time it worked and I managed not to see them again.

At about 8pm I reached the half way point in Kvam where my support crew where waiting at the side of the road with a banner... (gf/mum and my Norwegian Aunt) I made sure I hooked onto a group on the way to the feed station just so it didn't look like I was a lonely loser :-) At this stage I was actually feeling OK, thinking I'd been over the hardest part which was the mountain 1066m.

I'm not really used to riding in large groups and they very quickly get uncoordinated but small groups of up to 6 work quite well, and on a long ride it is nice to have a chat - if only for your sanity. I met a guy who appeared to be in his late 50's he asked me if it was my first time... which it was... I asked him the same... 14th time... last year he managed it in 18hrs. It rained a bit at midnight which was fine... didn't get too wet... but then at 3am the rain clouds around the fjords we were riding past were at ground level and for an hour I got really wet... followed by being quite chilly. I realised at this point I wasn't going to hit my target of 24hrs, I was getting tired and I couldn't go fast at all and my heart rate was around 120bpm. I also started suffering from lack of sleep with my mind doing funny things... I would check over my shoulder and shout torrets style to try and get some adrenaline going followed by having a caffeine based gel.

Food stops in generally were really good. Some soups, sarnies... at one stage I had a brown goats cheese (it's like caramel), salami and normal cheese triple sarnie which I dipped in soup... it was early I just wanted bulk in my stomach. Early morning it's raining, your tired... youve both had too much coffee, caffeine gels and also not enough. Non food stop stops were becoming more frequent... i.e. me stopping sitting on the floor and munching emergency malt loaf... suffering quite a lot, it seemed to go on... and on. and it was wet. at 4-5am I was quite low.

When looking at the very basic profile, it shows a large mountain and then appears flat. The reality was the mountain was flat, but the second half when you're tired the lumpy bits really are painful. Sweeping bends on the motorway coming into Oslo was a git...even at the finishing line it was an 100m up hill entrance to the car park!!

Asked when Id finished if I would do it again my response was instant. No. It's too fucking long and goes on.. forever. A week and a bit later... I would quite like to break the 24hr marrk. At 24hrs id done 512km.

Lasting effects... little and ring finger on my left hand are still numb/tingly I think it was pressure on my palm or something. 5th vertebrae (the big one) still hurts/aches. Penis has recovered.... mostly :-)

Looking at my placing I'm a bit surprised and quite pleased at being so average I actually thought I would be in the last 20%.

Post ride: I took the train from Oslo to Bergen for 2 days then a coach to Stavanger for 2 days then a train back to Oslo. I cannot recommend it more as a place to go.... it's an amazing. p.s. It's fking expensive. Another amazing thing was avoiding being crushed by roaming charges for once... Free Wifi: on the plane, train, hotel, coach, pub, cafe and on the ferry basically everywhere.

Apologies for the ramble. - Kristian