Ultracycling

Know it's not cycling, but man, this guy is my new fucking hero.
What a monster. telegraph.co.uk/sport/1216651­5/Marathon-man-Robert-Young-eyes-the-lon­g-road-ahead.html

Saw this today and suddenly remembered it was here that I first read about him...

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/22/robert-young-marathon-record-attempt-cheating-rumors

Moar controversy and intrigue!

Yeah he's called time on this record now, citing a fractured foot.
I don't really know about the naysayers, but sad.

Mandatory routes are a nightmare.

Managed to go off route and not correct it properly on PBP. Certainly wasn't a short cut but that's not the point of the rules. Oh noes!

Irony would be Lael's approach to the Yorktown monument being down the wrong road and therefore off route. [EDIT] Indeed a quick check of Streetview and looking at the FB video shows she did come down the wrong road to the finish.

Just read that, it's pretty scathing.

I think, if he want's to prove he's legit. He needs to go away, rebuild and come back with an indipendant observer. As done in UK RRA record attempts.

And now I'm reading some of the comments.

There is a HUGE story here.

You're just looking for holes now. There was a diversion in place in Yorktown as stated by the organiser.

Heh. That was sarcasm.

I prefer free route between controls and/or short (in relation to the whole ride) sections of mandatory parcours type of stuff. Mandatory route stuff just makes me feel nervous the entire time.

My tongue is swollen from all the citric acid in my food/drink and I'm bitter the person about to be crowned the winner of this race hasn't ridden the full route. #csb

Sounds painful.

Are they going to give him it? With a time penalty, or just ignore that he missed 100km out?

There will be at least a time penalty if it's decided he didn't do it, but I think no one's 100% either way. The race director is also racing so we won't know til he gets in.

Are you racing? The weather has looked grim. But the scenery delightful!

@hippy had problems with the nerves in my hands on the 2nd day. Lots of climbing out of the saddle and must have been doing something stupid. On the upside my ankles stayed together albeit I only lasted 700km.

Bummer dude. You wearing gloves? I sometimes get nervy hand pain riding the TT bike out of the aerobars a lot, ie. during lumpy audaxes. Not really been serious so I've never looked for a solution. Gel under the bar tape maybe or concentrating on staying in the saddle and spinning a lower gear might help.

Hope you recover quick.

Stopped before I did major damage. Yeah had gloves on and double taped. Have a huge 34-30 gear but with the extra weight on the bike and the headwind up the steep I had to get a lot of my weight on the handlebars to to keep the front wheel down. Im not too cut up and glad I had the sense to stop before I did too much. Wasn't like Paris where I could persevere.

Sensible. I'm worried about TCR for this kind of reason.

I'm already pretty broken from years of racing, I don't really want to do proper damage to anything that might stop me riding altogether or something. I want to test limits, push myself blah blah but how far? I guess I'll just see what happens.

Yep I am! Got less than 500km to go now I think, just stopped for coffee. Getting sleepy now. Average of 4.5hrs a night but lowest was 2.5, don't want to catch up on sleep, just wanna finish now.
Weather is wet, but warm so not too bad, I've just kind of forgotten that it's supposed to be summer. Scenery is grand but due to the coastal route a little repetetive. Tiny bit of valleys today which is a nice change.

Good riding! Keep it up, you're nearly there!

Finished TAW this morning, after trying to push through last night I was hallucinating and Nodding off on the bike despite having just had a coffee, a red bull and an energy gel with 150mg of caffeine. I'd also taken all my warm clothes off in the hope the cold would keep me awake.
I ended up reluctantly bivying for a few hours, the gap between me and the person behind was big enough that it didn't really matter though. Happy with how it went despite being held back by total of about a day/half a day by mechanicals, its all part of the game though.

Interestingly some TCR/Transam veterans said TAW was as hard/harder cause of the constant unrelenting headwind (inevitable if riding SW in Ireland), it always being rolling hills and the extremely unpredictable weather.

Also very impressed with Paula Regener's performance, especially coming off not much training due to recently breaking her ankle, I think she could do really well if she carries on with these races.

Well done! Have enjoyed the photos you've been posting along the way too

Great work! Well done on finishing.

http://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/cyclingtips-podcast-episode-5-extreme-racing/

"I think if we treat things as a pass or fail test that we can torture ourselves mentally over the outcome, but if we consider it more as an experiment with an uncertain outcome from the start, then we always at least get an answer."

• Mike 'I don't need chainring bolts' Hall
  

Short piece on both Lael and Mike's recent records: http://www.outsideonline.com/2095326/two-americas-most-difficult-endurance-records-just-got-smashed

@The_Seldom_Killer are you still planning to do the Peak ITT next weekend?

Looks like not. I've not been able to get in shape for it and have a clash with helping run the polo tournament at Cliffhanger.

Going to train up and have a crack at it at the end of summer. Hopefully it'll be dryer by then because Cut Gate is going to be pretty horrendous for the next few weeks.