2019 Solo Mens Longest Day Longest Ride champion Johnny Galbraith kindly wrote us his point of view on how this year’s event went for him! There’s some golden nuggets and heartfelt honestly in this blog. Grab a brew, sit back and enjoy..
Wow, what a blast.. I genuinely canít believe I won that. I never expected to, never aimed to, it was a target way beyond possibility, beyond comprehension..
2019 got off to a great start, excellent weight loss, putting plenty of training in (by the way; Strava doesn’t show my turbo trainer rides..) but then my diary started to fill up quickly.
I’ve got a full time job and I’m a musician as well so I get booked for gigs and performances. And you can’t say no.
If you do they find someone else and it can take years before you get asked again.
Yeah – first world problem right?? Trying to fit all these fun things into my diary!
I looked at my diary late March and spotted that the night before every enduro I had a gig or something, that LDLR was right after TT week which would entail a string of gigs, that the bank holidays I normally use for 8 hour pre LDLR sessions either had a gig that night or the night before..
At that point I wrote my cycling year off – chalked it up to one of those years and decided just to have a laugh !
I was still riding – I commuter cycle – but just as happened last year the office I work in gets really hot – by home time I’ve practically melted, my energy is so low I was struggling to ride after work. Weekends were full, if I wasn’t playing, then I’d be out with Helen, or home at a party with friends.
TT week came and went with 8 gigs – I had figured I could do a 4 hour prep ride on Senior Race day – but the night before our new neighbours (new to the island too) reminded me I’d offered to take them to a great viewing spot.. So that was another ride dead in the water.
With less than a week to go I find myself in A&E with a badly sliced finger thanks to a hedge trimmer incident – I’m thinking “What else can go wrong??” A question I should not have thought !
On the Wednesday before the race start I received an email from my best mate who is the singer and guitarist in my main band. He has some problems that meant he was going to have to stop playing music..
So, Thursday – cold light of day, no ride that night as I had band stuff to do, bookings to cancel etc etc
Friday – just a trip to the hospital to get my dressing changed. It all looked good so that was a positive. All I need is an early night – which didn’t happen – all my race prep I was meant to do on Thursday hadn’t happened due to band stuff so I finally got to bed about 23:15.
Saturday dawned after a sleepless night. Car packed and off we went to off load at our start line tent. From emails earlier in the week I thought I was going to be last to the Flo tent but no, we were first there.
Checking the wind I rearranged the entrance to the tent to keep the wind out as much as possible, and then my Flomates Emma and Mike turned up shortly followed by Annabel, Jack and Stu.
Once the tent was in order, briefing attended etc various questions were asked “Have you ridden the course ?” “No, I rode it enough last year!”
I picked my start kit – warm clothing as the wind was bitterly cold..
Then my mobile went – a message from my mate – he’d been to see people that had advised him not to stop gigging.. We were back on. A big big mental boost for me.
Midday – the flag dropped and off we went. I settled into a nice pace, not too hard, generally around 21 minute laps, stopping once an hour for more food into my bag, getting bottles of water or rehydrate. I knew Woody was somewhere ahead on the SingleSpeed, we’d swap places every now and again and I was having fun.
Two years ago Adam and I came up with a mental indicator – we found a pretty much direct link with how I’m feeling mentally and how much fuel I have in my body, we sorted out a scale of 1/10 with 10 being mentally 100% positive, 6 was a warning that we needed to up my feed, 4 is getting into a danger zone and 2 (or less) is stop right now.
That year we never got beneath a 6 and generally I was up about 8 or 9.
This year mentally I was on an 11 when I started, but as the day went on things started to chip away, I put some of the tricks back in – thinking about gigging with my mate – high fives after the start line with as many people as I could, whistling tunes to myself. I remember catching someone on the climb on Doubters pass and their almost disbelief that I was catching them and whistling..
A few people might have seen me doing the handclaps that you get in the middle of Greased lightning or spelling YMCA as I was riding the bike..
All little things to keep that mental brightness level up
About 6 hours in I go the signal from Team Flo that I was in second place – I assumed second place in the SingleSpeed category..
Then a lap or so later Graham gave me a single finger from the timing box – ok – this is weird, err..
I saw Graham walking along the track as I came to complete the next lap and asked – he said “Bottom right on the timing board.” – that would be the bottom right on the timing board just after the finish line that I hadn’t even noticed . And there it was R1
So position one in the solo men…
Despite being pleased with that we weren’t keeping up with my feeding , I was getting a bit of acid reflux which meant I needed to slow down a bit to see if I could reduce the calorie burn rate and give my stomach a little rest. My head was buzzing when I pulled in – we tried a few tricks to sort my stomach out and it improved – we got more food in and my mind went back on the job of having a laugh and keeping the pedals turning.
All the time though I am very aware that the things I feel like eating are diminishing.. Itís best described as a funnel. At the start of the race I’m at the top of the funnel, I can eat just about anything but as it goes on I fancy less and less foods and eventually the funnel gets really tight where there are only a few things left to eat.
I end up eating out of necessity – forcing myself once a lap to take on nutrients that my body doesn’t like.
As it got darker my mood improved – I like night riding, Iím not using mega lights so my pace drops a bit which is ok as it means a lower calorie burn.
A few things echoed in my mind from last year before I quit – Adam telling me it looked like I was tense in my riding so as my shoulders tightened I worked on relaxing, as the back of my arms started to get sore I tried to relax the pressure on the bars etc, just relaxing and enjoying the riding.
I was working on where I was catching people – easing off aniod relaxing, getting a bit of a rest and aiming to catch where I could pass rather than rushing up to people and having to follow them through singletrack sections.
From pretty much 11pm onwards my mind is blank, few things stand out except from midnight the acid reflux is back and this time itís really bad. I kind of kept quiet about it with the team – they were full of energy and praise as I was putting good solid laps in, and when the timing system recovered it seemed like from somewhere I’d managed to pull two or three laps out on Steve. I thought that was likely to be a system error, I didn’t believe it and was fairly sure that it was a lot closer.
Looking at the data now I’d got maybe a lap and a half ahead – for four and a half hours through the night I had held an over 30 minute gap.
During the night a few mental gremlins started to sneak up – I knew how under prepared I was, how much less training I’d done than previously so I was waiting for my legs to fail. There had to be a point where this would catch me out. Somehow though after worrying about it for a couple of laps I totally forgot about it !
About 5:30 am I was getting mentally tired but I knew it was only 40 mins till my normal wake up time so I knew things were as low as they would get. How wrong was I!
The dawn came up – lovely red light cutting through the trees, a little bit of warmth around but my digestion problem was not getting any better.
I was starting to need longer and longer food stops – thinking I had a much wider gap on Steve I wasn’t worried but then mentally I crashed – the acceptable mental 6 or 7 became a 3 or a 4. We tried everything, but nothing was working.
When I stopped I was being told it’s only a few hours, you’ll get on the rostrum, just keep going but as soon as I went back out I spent 20 mins in hell, trying to digest food, trying to get rid of the constant taste of acid in my mouth – eventually I’d had enough. I crossed the line and for the first time since maybe 6pm the night before the sign read R2.
I stopped at the tent and walked inside and sat down “We either fix this now, or I quit.” again I got “It’s just a few more hours, you’ll get a rostrum.” was all I heard (there might have been more relevant stuff too).
Fortunately my Helen was there. “Helen, please help me?” it was meant as a “Stop them from pushing me, I can’t take this anymore etc.”
My mind and body had hit it’s limit.
Helen wrapped me in a blanket, fussed around, sorted me a cup a soup with lots of milk, gave me a large handful of rennies (which she had to feed me as I couldn’t hold them) and stopped everyone from pushing me. At this point John Watterson came past and it did look like game over for me – I thought he was going to take a photo but I think he saw what I was going through and left me alone.
From somewhere the food was starting to work, the acid was diminishing and I felt like riding – but not to the finish. The plan was just for the SingleSpeed Trophy. I needed to know how far I was ahead and how long I needed to ride so I could not be beaten.
Out on the bike again and starting to feel better, my lap times dropped back into the low 22s and I was having a good time. The plan in my head was just to do enough to get that SingleSpeed trophy – then I spotted Darren walking across the track – he’d either finished – or was my mind playing tricks ?
A quick stop at the tent for more energy sweets and I told Adam what I’d seen and asked could he see how far I had to go to put the SingleSpeed race beyond all doubt – what was my energy budget ?? I had this plan that if I caught up to Steve then there was no way I would lose the SingleSpeed trophy – yes that is how messed up my mind was !
Mid lap I exited Mr Tickle and found myself riding with Steve – a strange sensation knowing how I was riding. I was almost going to follow him but thought what the hell – let’s see what happens and kept pushing.
Next lap the display was back onto R1!
Gary Kirby caught me on the next lap and stuck with me to encourage me to the finish which turned out to be more like nearly breaking me as he beasted me to faster lap times!
It was nice to ride with someone – a SingleSpeed rides things differently – you have to carry speed, you have to push hard on short climbs – so a few laps with someone was a great way to finish.
I was trying to get timings from the team about when I could finish, I wanted to time it so I didn’t have to do an extra lap but with Gary pushing me that wasn’t an option – the SingleSpeed express was rolling on through
The team tried to catch me on the last lap but to no avail – with Gary pushing me on we’d trimmed a minute of my lap time so by the time they realised I was there I’d gone.
Midway through the last lap there was a rider ahead on Mr Tickle – in my tired state I thought there was room to pass.. There wasn’t, our bars overlapped and the rider went down – to my horror it was Steve 🙁 I was (and still am) mortified – he’s a great guy, he’d ridden a great race and didn’t deserve to be dumped on the floor.
We agreed to ride over the line together – Gary and I took off and waited short of the finish whilst I changed into my Flo top.. When Steve caught us we let Gary head off and across the line we went one and two in order.
Steve and I shook hands after the race – for me it was a big moment – I’d never planned to win, he hadn’t even thought he’d get on the rostrum – but even then I doubt any one would have bet on the final order. Steve being the great guy he is has offered to help me with sorting nutrition and I in return have offered to take him out on a SingleSpeed !
Who to thank??
Helen – my lovely Helen for putting up with me and supporting me
Adam for continuing his excellent coaching and friendship.
Team Flo and my Flomates
Steve Kelly for just being the nicest guy
Gary Kirby for pushing me onto one of my best lap times – on my last flying lap
Bikestyle for looking after my bike and my weird needs on so so many occasions.
Magners for making such excellent cider
Cuba for post-race cigars..
And of course all the LDLR crew for a well organised event.
