ARRIVEE –  Always good to start on A positive. A few points to be mindful of, when we are all moseying back to the finish victorious:

– in the last 40/50k thoughts of finishing will be foremost in your mind, as fatigue increases, concentration deceases. This triplet of circumstances form the classic ingredients for getting lost. Be wary of taking your eye off your goal at this late stage. In 2011, the arrows near the finish had been tampered with causing many riders to lose time, when the finish was tantalisingly close.

– lunchtime traffic is very heavy towards finish, best avoided if possible.

– finishing in the middle of the night can be disheartening, the control is deserted and it can be hard to find nourishment/ alcohol.

PLAN A – To save us “drowning in distance“, most people will find, that they work better using some form of a Plan. A well tried and successful plan is to break the event into several manageable days. On the first day you might decide to ride x kilometers and spend x time sleeping at Control x. Ditto for the following days, if you can do this on a sliding scale of distance, all the better.     

drowning in distance = moseying along aimlessly, spending hours at each control before the sudden realisation, that you are pushing the time limit, dawns. Now you are chasing the control closing times and negativity can set in. Thoughts like “there’s 700k to go, how will I ever manage this” are floating around and can crush you.