RST athlete James Hayden wins Transcontinental Race
The last few days have been a bit of a whirl! Myself and my partner, Claire, have been fervently dot-watching. I mentioned this in the previous blog post about the Transcontinental Race TCR No5 (http://www.rstsport.com/blog-august-2017/). At the end of that post I mentioned that James Hayden had just moved into the lead. Since that post a few days ago, James (https://twitter.com/JamesMarkHayden) has continued to hammer it, and late last night (7th August) we heard that officially he’d won the Transcontinental.
Obviously, James is going to be pretty shattered and needs to rest – we’ve not chatted properly yet, but I’m certain that he’s absolutely thrilled to have won. I can see that in his twitter posts, and how he smashed the last 40 hours with barely a break. I’m uber proud of James and how he rode. Starting steady, taking a different route and then moving through the field to take the lead. It was a magical ride. I can’t begin to understand how it felt – this is way beyond anything I’ve done on a bike (or off a bike!). The longest time trial I’ve ridden is a 12-hour event, and while I’ve ridden along most of the Tour de France route it was a supported event. This was something else – unsupported, which would have taken huge mental fortitude. The word is used too frequently, but this was epic.
I take my hat off to you James. Chapeau! That really was a brilliant ride. (Good luck and ride fast to everyone else – only Bjorn Lenhard looks like he’s finished in 2nd place).
In an upcoming blog article we’ll go through some of the data from James’s ride — and what it means in terms of training and how you may be able to apply some of the techniques to your training — especially if you’re interested in these ultra events. In the meantime here’s some more links to James’s ride!
http://www.transcontinental.cc/
http://road.cc/content/news/227223-james-hayden-wins-transcontinental-race-no-5