Credit Crunch Sportive

Today I headed off to leek to ride the credit crunch sportive, collecting Julie on the way. It was a lot smaller than other events I have done but had a lovely friendly atmosphere. When we arrived we were given a start time of 10:05 and set off with a group of four lads. Since the event was 52miles I decided to try and sit in with them for as long as possible, this was about 10 miles and I even was on the front for a fair amount. After that we got a bit split up on the climbs but we kept seeing each other all day. There was a quite a headwind for a lot of the ride so when I got the chance I tried to sit in behind bigger blokes - they have their uses! At the feed station my average speed was 15.4 mph, I could hardly believe it! After the feed we were slower, but we went up gun hill - 8% on the chart above! Which was a killer. One last push towards the end and a final average of 15.1 mph. Al I can say is wow! My legs felt it but it felt good to have got a good time.

After lots of chatting at Julies I headed off home, tired but happy. The results are already up but in a pdf so I can't sort it. It looks like Julie and I just missed being joint fastest females by 2 minutes, the fastest time was 2:51 and we finished in 3:35. I thought that was quite respectable!

My garmin stats:

51.72 miles @ 15.1 mph
1336m ascent
Max speed 41.5 mph
Av HR 166bpm

My garmin says the route was 56.8% of climbing, 17.4% of flat and 25.9% of descending - not sure I like that!

redbike also rode the event, but his time is void due to him taking a short cut and missing the hardest hill!