Most years I begin my sportive season with the achingly well-named Hell of the Ashdown event out of Biggin Hill, based on the old adage that, like starting your day with a cup of cold sick, things can only get better. It's one of the toughest in the calendar here in the South, and does have a habit of being in the worst of conditions.
This year, however, I deferred this dubious pleasure in favour of running my first half marathon. Last time I did the HOTA, I lost the feeling in my hands for a week. After the Brighton Half, I lost two toenails but that's a 'win' in my book as the misery lasted four hours less.
Thinking the weather may've improved enough to venture out without electric insoles, I plumped instead for the Wiggle Ashdown Sportive out of Ardingly Showground. I did last year's event and enjoyed it immensely; the weather was fresh, but not cripplingly inclement. Ardingly is a mere 10km from where I live so I decided to ride to the start, warming my legs up in process. As it turned out, my waving hand got a fair workout too as I encountered scores of other riders along my route as I rode to the venue.
As ever, the registration and start up was slick and efficient and held in an outbuilding so no one had to remove their shoes - I had so many layers on I don't think I could have easily reached my feet. We were sharing part of the route with a charity ride, so there was a bit of confusion at the start for those at the back, like me, who just saw two different instruction boards held up with different coloured arrows on them. I had already pre-checked the route, and all the roads were well known to me but some people were a bit bewildered.
That aside, the route management was up to Wiggle/UKCE's usual standard, even taking into account a last-minute course change that, in a cruel twist from last year, actually took you past ride HQ after 40km rather than just close. Wiser participants may've wished to have bailed out there and then, as from here the course got hillier and the weather grimmer. As the temperatures plummeted and the gradients increased I began to look forward to the next hill as the descents were giving me excruciating brain freeze.
After the excellent feed station at Horsted Keynes that served warming cups of tea, coffee and hot choccie - a genius idea in the circumstances - it began raining, lightly at first and then with increasing persistence until at the top of the forest it began to snow. This made the longest descent of the day, down Kidds Hill, like being pelted with frozen peas. The photographer camped out at the bottom must've checked his pics at the end of the day and wondered why everyone was wearing Kabuki masks.
After a brief stop at the bottom to attempt to unlock my jaw to refuel, it was a matter of knuckling down and grinding back up to the start, safe in the knowledge that there would be a hot sausage roll and a massive cup of steaming tea back at base. Sadly, no hot sausage awaited but I managed to buy two cups of tea, one of which I considered pouring down the front of my bib shorts. For once I took the finisher's shirt and put it on for my return to home, but for me it was 10km too far.
I arrived home a blubbering wreck, cold and miserable, which for me sets this event on an equal with the Hell and by that definition can be called a successful day. People who do late winter/early spring sportives don't do them for fun, do they? With that one in the bag, though, the year can only get better.
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