Managing to improve my tardiness its only been 5 days since
my last race and here I am writing an update!!
Can I take that as another win?!
This week saw my return to 25mile Time Trials, it was a
course that was close to my parents which allows both my wife and I to race
while we make use of free childcare our daughter gets to spend quality
time with the grandparents!
The course is an interesting blend, of some light rolling
bits and narrowish roads and then a flat section to the turnaround and then a
retracing of your steps. Its quite a
nice course all things told and being an “L” shape there is a reasonable chance
that at some point you will get an advantageous wind.
The lead up was not ideal, and in fact I was expecting to
not race, Erin (my daughter) was really ill on the Wednesday before and it was
the first time she has been properly sick, its not nice to see as they don’t really
know what’s going on but as she seems to with most things she just got on with
it, in fact I think she quite enjoyed mum and dad running about with bowls and
towels certainly in between the sickness she was full of beans!
With the little one being ill it seems inevitable that mum
and dad will soon succumb to said illness and another day hugging the toilet
would be in order, although there is little worse that your 10month old
daughter taking a sickness bug like more of a man than me!! I need to toughen up!
I was conscious of every little odd feeling but nothing came
of it and we headed off to Lincolnshire on Saturday morning with the “dad bus”
(Volvo V70) loaded to the roof.
I had said to Coach Rob ahead of the race that I would be disappointed
if I didn’t win, that is not me being arrogant (well maybe a bit), but I knew
that I should be quicker than those on the start sheet, but this does add an element
of pressure!
On the way down Fiona and I were discussing the weather, it
was forecast to be a strong westerly with a good chance of heavy and possibly thundery
showers, which led to a lot of discussion around whether to wear the KASK visor
or not, they are horrendous for steaming up in rainy conditions and we were
thinking we would need to find a suitable location to throw them half way
round, the weather is always a factor but generally it’s the same for everyone
so we just hoped the rain stayed away.
With a short chat in HQ and a steady warm up I made it to
the start with 5 mins to spare, which was probably a bit too much but rather be
there on time than get a penalty for a late start. I was running my normal set up 50mm front
wheel and disc, I would run these in mot conditions, they are pretty controllable,
but with an expectation of a strong cross wind at the start and then tailwind
to the turn point I was prepared for a little bit of a rough ride.
In the end the weather was not so bad on the way out, the
cross wond was more of a head cross and the nature of the road gave a degree of
protection, I made good time to first turn but was conscious about managing my
effort, its easy to go out too hard with a tailwind and leave nothing for the
fight back.
Riding quite an aggresive position can give some problems, and the longer the race the bigger the chnace of problems, for me it was my hip flexors, they just didnt want to play ball, first the right one started to cramp up, concious there is little I could do I just peddaled through it, it hurt all the way to the finish (about 12miles) but it was manageable, the left one was less kind, whem it went the pain was a lot higher than the right and each time I tried to puish through it just got worse, I had to sit up and try and stretch it the best I could but didnt want to lose any time, in the end I was able to get back into my aero position and manage both of them to the finish, but I think more mainteance of my legs is required!
Getting the wind on my back I was clicking down through the
gears, soon I was running out meaning I was over 40mph, which on the flat is
some going and feels pretty damn good. I
was watching the average speed creep up, I hit the turn point at just under
32mph, which is a bit ludicrous really, but I knew I had a hard slog back to
keep that up.
I had targeted 27mph average speed for the return which
would have seen be come home around the 29mph mark, and at first it seemed like
it was on, the wind didn’t seem as bad as expected and I was making good speed….
Then it hit me, coming into a false flat in an exposed part of the road I was struggling
to maintain 20mph, I was fighting just to keep going forward but I composed
myself and really focussed on my aero position, knowing that can make the
difference, the last turn and relief from the wind seemed like an eternity away,
but it slowly came into view and as I turned I got the wind on my back and felt
the relief as the speed picked up.
In the end I averaged 28mph for the day which gave me the
win by 1min 44secs, which made for a good day out, I cooled down and waited for
Fiona, she too had a good ride and placed 1st lady by pretty much
the same margin 1min 43secs. So a good
day out got even better and good day for York Cycleworks colours.
I have 2 weeks off before hitting the V718, although it’s
the day after a mates stag do so its hard to say how that will go, and only 4
weeks until the national 25, fingers crossed I get a ride and then I just need
to find my good legs to take.
The race report from the Witham Wheelers race can be found
here: https://www.ctt.org.uk/race-report/12112
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