Sara’s 12-Hour Time Trial: A Story of Rain, Resolve, and Roadkill 

A Rocky Road To The Start Line

I tore my calf in May. It’s been frustrating, constraining, demanding a lot of patience and frankly boring time. Since then it was a lot of easy cycling, only picking up the intensity and duration over the last few weeks. The physio said I could train but didn’t sign me off to ride this tt till 2 weeks before, so mentally, I wasn’t super ready for it. At the same time, because I wasn’t able to do a few events I planned I felt like I should do it. 

Arthur, Curiosity, And “Because You Can”

I spotted my mate on the start list and I had questions. The fact that Arthur done this event 17 times and he’s nearly 70 should give you a good idea of the kind of man he is. Arthur was very encouraging and covered all of my questions.

When we were chatting he asked “why are you doing this?”

I said I wasn’t sure, but I think it’s mostly because I’m curious and want to see what I’ll find out, and because I can. And because I think it’ll make Ironman bike feel short 🤣.

I asked Arthur the same question.

He was only half joking when he said “If I stop, I’ll never do it again.”

It really got to me. It hit home that you never know when your last marathon, last Ironman, last parkrun will be. Injuries, life events, things happen. I definitely normalised taking part, and have taken it for granted. And so, I was going into it with a degree of apprehension, but also eager to find out what it’ll be like – and without any expectations or goals, other than try to complete it.

There was also a tiny part of me that wanted to break 200 miles, I’ll admit. 

Race Day: A Soaked Start

It was a 4:25 start even though the Travelodge was 9min drive from the HQ. I slept badly. As soon as i walked into the parking it started raining. Arthur and I drove to the HQ. After the usual faffing, headed to the start of tt, about 3 miles down the road.

When cycling there, the rain really picked up. Before my 6:06 send off, I was totally soaked through, my waterproof jacket was clinging to me like one of those plastic bags that sticks to you when swimming in the dock.

“You’re a triathlete,  you can swim, stop panicking”- I was trying to put my brave face on.

The truth was, I couldn’t see the road, didn’t know where were the potholes, couldn’t see the path taken by other cyclists because we were 1 min apart. The rain was biblical, pelting down, hurting my face and I was cycling through about an inch of standing water hoping for the best. My breaks hardly worked.

The route was divided into 3 sectors:

• The first sector was ~85km there and back to Battlefields – which is aptly named as it did feel like a battle.
• Next, was the big loop, about 22m, a triangle. Two nice sides, and one lumpy, headwindy road.
• Then we moved onto the finishing sector. The same headwindy horrible road, plus some scenic cut throughs that made a 10 mile triangle.

The Slowest Thirteen Minutes Of My Life

Throughout the whole event, time was really messing with me, it was quite discombobulating. 

After cycling for hours, I looked at my watch and it turned out I cycled for 13 minutes.

It rained for 3 hours straight. I could feel road dirt everywhere – my eyes, my chamois, my socks, my feet. My feet were freezing from the rain too. I started chafing and my back was killing me – and I was only riding for 1.5h at the time. This wasn’t looking good, I realised I may not be able to complete it.

I was expecting some aching but around 8h in, not at this point. I imagined telling Bryan why I DNFed.

I also didn’t want to ask to be pulled out of the event, so I prayed for a mechanical.

At the same time I did a little singing to distract myself too (actually very helpful).  This included an epic rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (Turnaround) song at the turnaround point of the first sector 🤣

The first sector was finally done, under 4h and I went by Espley Island, the roundabout with most of the support crew, race organiser, that I was going to pass about 10 more times. It stopped raining, but the wind picked up. 

The RedBull Revelation

Picked some bottles / food, headed out onto the main segment (22 mile loop). I was in pain, time was moving so slowly, I couldn’t see how I’ll do 8 more hours, it was awful. But at the same time, being on the new loop was exciting – entered new stage and I saw more marshalls and volunteers – including a few familiar faces (Hannah and Duff from  Bravehearts and Ruth – grandma of Mersey Tri mate Baz and an absolute cycling legend). 

On the second approach to Espley island (~5h in), I downed a can of RedBull (limited edition elderflower – definitely recommend) and 2 ibuprofens. Not my usual style to down painkillers, but I was a bit desperate. I chatted with the race director and told him that my bum and my back are killing me, I can’t do this, I’m planning to quit around 8h.  He was very sympathetic and said I’ll be surprised, I’m doing great, keep going. 

I was indeed surprised when 10 minutes after that I felt like a different person. The pain disappeared, I was able to put some power down, I was singing (Deceptacon by Le Tigre) – life was great, everything had changed.

I lost some nutrition to a pothole near Edgebolton, but figured it’ll be ok. At that point I also remembered that I didn’t pack that bagel I was meant to pack, so actually I’m riding on minus 100g carbs … so maybe not super ok, but we’ll manage. Why did I not pack any extra food. I should have known better.

My nutrition plan was well tested stuff plus never previously used RedBulls, because why not try something new on the race day 🤣 (SIS beta fuel carb powder x 7 bottles, Stryker rice bars x 5?, RedBull x 2x, bagel x 1, some haribos = 70g / h). 

From Roadkill To Realisation

I was getting familiar with the roadkill and named it – it sort of became a marker of time / distance as apart for Edgebolton and Cold Hatton, I didn’t see many named places. So I was cycling from Peter the Pale Pheasant, to Fanny the Flat Pigeon to Harry the Small Hedgehog  and then to Mike the Maybe Squirrel …  on repeat.

Around 6-7h in, I was rotating through standing on pedals – cycling tall- TT position and ignored the idea of sticking to TT when it was most efficient – as at that point I couldn’t do it. I thought better to cycle inefficiently than nothing at all. The wind picked up, horrible cross wind and headwind. But at that time I felt better than 13min in.

Arthur Down

The buzz from RedBull was still going, but the pain was also returning. I saw an ambulance driving down the road, quite an ominous sign when you have ~20 riders on the road. I turned the Braveheart corner (where Duff and Hannah were marshalling) into a downhill road full of potholes and the ambulance was there – an easy place for an accident.

Yikes. As I cycled past the ambulance, I saw Arthur, covered in blood, propped by Hannah being walked to the ambulance. It was a shock, I stopped, didn’t know what to do, felt gutted for Arthur, worried. Hannah said “keep going he’ll be fine”, so I went. Hannah is a doctor. He was being walked into the ambulance – there wasn’t much I could actually do.

It’s never nice to see an injured cyclist, but to see Arthur – my pal on this journey – was really gut wrenching. My mood switched completely, itty bitty panic attack and lots of tears followed, I really wanted a hug, I wanted to know what was happening with Arthur.  Felt like my brain was being put through a cheese grater.

When I calmed down a bit, I realised I probably now have to finish this to honour our “because you can” deal.

Argh.

It didn’t give me a new motivation, still felt fragile and worried, but thought if I’m not feeling injured I have to keep going.

Pain, Dignity & Chamois Cream

Hours 7-9 were a bit of a blur, but they went quickly. The pain didn’t get any worse.

I lost some dignity points somewhere around that time:

1) toilet stop in the bushes + trying to put completely soaked tri suit on.. the bushes weren’t as tall as I initially thought and 3 cyclists went by as I wrestled with my trisuit

2) a very kind volunteer handed me chamois cream at Espley Island. I had to apply in front of moving traffic and about 10 people (didn’t care at that point). 

The Final Stretch

At around 10 hours I realised I can finish it. We moved onto the small finishing circuit (the excitement of novelty was unreal) and time keepers and marshalls were closer together (apart for the long stretch into headwind) – it felt easier when seeing more people. My legs were actually ok, my chafing felt better, my back still hurt and at this point I also had sore eyes, neck, toes, palms of my hand.

I now started praying for no mechanicals 🤣

Told my bike she did so well to carry me safely for so long.

1h left, last bottle picked, another wee (I knew the perfect spot by then after cycling by it about 11 times). I thought I picked the pace slightly. 

15 min to go and I started counting down seconds. The problem I encountered then was when your 12h elapse, you need to cycle to the next time keeper, and they estimate the time. So you actually go on for more than 12h. I had 2 min left when the nice stretch of the road close to the HQ ended, the next timekeeper was 6 miles away, at the end of the awful headwindy road, that I didn’t want to do ever again. The penultimate time keepers insisted I keep going though.

I cried for the second time, hated that road, thought I won’t have to do it.

I thought the time keepers were on Espley island but they were actually around the corner about mile down – when I found out about this on Espley island, I was so done. Finally got to the Timekeepers 1, tucked at the side of the road. I asked if I can stop cycling now. Wowzer, I guess that’s the end of that. I’m glad I did it, I’m never doing that again 🤣

The Aftermath

Arthur is dong ok – minus a tooth. Legend.

I finished with 351km (218 miles). Kept the faffing time low (I think) ~10 min non cycling time – which included a few traffic lights stops/ toilets stops/ food pick ups.

Got a great hug from Ruth at the end. She’s done it years ago and it was quite special to see her there. And from Tom- who was there waiting for me in the HQ. Felt extremely grateful for all the marshals and volunteers on the course – it literally wouldn’t be possible without them and it takes so much effort and coordination to organise this. It’s a small miracle and credit to the cycling community that these events are still going on.

My contact lenses were merged with my eyeballs and I looked like a rabbit.  

Also walking felt weird – I had proper sea legs and altered propreaception. Anyone doing this more than once is tougher than nails, coming back to it after knowing what it’s like is insanity. 

TL; DR

• I found time to be an extremely subjective thing during this tt, and it messed with me. Minutes felt like hours and hours like minutes. 
• It was an emotional rollercoaster like nothing else I’ve done.
• It’s a long time to spend in your head, it’s not broken down like triathlon.
• The second wind was a real thing for me – you never know what’s around the corner, things can change dramatically in a way you don’t expect them to. Worth sticking it out just in case. 
• It’s mentally harder than Ironman but physically easier (from my very limited experience).
• Better to move slowly than not at all.
• Pack extra food. Always. 
• My legs were fine, but plenty of other body parts were not.
• 12h TT actually involves cycling quite a bit longer – close to 13h when you add the start and end bit.
• RedBulls ad doesn’t lie – it gives you wings.

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Coach’s Note:

As her coach, I’ve always said that racing reveals things training can’t. This one definitely did. Sara didn’t arrive with ideal prep, perfect confidence, or a flawless plan – but she turned up willing to see what she’d find out. That mindset matters. It’s easy to race when everything lines up. It’s harder – and often more meaningful – when it doesn’t.

There’s a lot to take from this ride: the value of pacing, the power of a second wind, the importance of spare snacks. But mostly, it’s a reminder that sometimes showing up curious is enough. The rest, you work out on the road.