White Horse Challenge 2010
I am looking forward to my first event of the year which is the local (to me) White Horse Challenge, which is a romp around four White Horse Hills, Uffington, Broadtown, Cherhill & Hackpen (Uffington White Horse is the oldest of all British chalk figures and dates back almost 3000 years).
This is my favourite sportive of the year and I’ve ridden in every edition since it started in 2007. It’s not too long and the hills are manageable for an early season event at about 145 km and just under 1,500 metres of elevation gain.
The WHC is on Sunday 25th of April this year so not long to go now. I just hope the rather disastrous start to the year doesn’t mean I end up being slower than in previous years.
Last year I managed to improve on the previous year by skipping the first feed stop altogether (other than stopping to have the timer dibbed) and then spending as little time as possible in the second stop, just enough time to fill a bottle and grab something to eat.
My secret weapons this year were a new lighter bike and doing intervals over the winter. The new bike is there but has only had a couple of outings this year so the intervals plan will have to take the strain, although training this year has been compromised by snow and ice and colds and flu.
See below for the summary of my ride on last year’s event from Garmin Connect
