As we sat in the sports hall of the University of South
Wales I don’t think i’ve ever felt so out of my depth, a 5 day, 6 stage road race
in Wales over some pretty tough terrain. What was I doing?
The first stage was a Team TT of 6.9 miles, with effectively
no climbing at all. London Phoenix (Simon, Ben, Joe and myself) were off first at
3:32pm (thanks to Gunther winning the Ras last year) We arrived with enough
time to ride the course before, and managed to note down any key points where
we needed to be careful, or could seriously drop the hammer, like 3km to go. The
course was on quiet country lanes, that in general, were in very good
condition, a few sketchy corners and rough sections but overall it was looking
good. Conditions were humid to say the least, car said 29 degrees! We were
going to be dripping!
Pre TTT Selfie
As we stood in the layby, with 2 minutes to go I was
nervous, our previous training sessions for me had never gone great, I always
seemed to tired and didn’t have the legs, however having rested well over the
past week I was feeling good, I think.
We were off. Joe first, then me, Ben and then Simon. Joe
shot off, I clipped in just, and Ben almost clipped in, a few moments passed but
then both Ben and Simon were on, and we settled down to what would likely be a
very painful time. We had agreed to do turns of around 20 seconds on the front,
then rotating clockwise to the back, in practice this had worked well, and
seemed the best option. I pulled through and maintained a constant 30mph
(50kmph) for my turn, I was feeling good (thankfully) and couple this with a
borrowed set of 50mm wheels holding this pace, and getting back onto the group
seemed good. I rolled around and joined the back as Ben was now on the front
pulling, the pace still high. We were doing well, upto the half way point our
average was around 28.5mph, certainly more than I was expecting to see given we
were on standard road bikes (minus aero wheels) Just after the half way point
there was a sharp left turn, I took this perhaps a little too slow being on the
back, but sprinted back with a bit more effort. By this point, Simon, who was nursing
a hip injury from a road race crash the previous weekend seemed in pain, he
dropped back for a turn and it was just the three of us powering on. 3km to go
(thankfully) this was where we agreed to really drop the hammer, I certainly
tried, but our average was dropping slightly and were now at 28mph for the
ride. 1 km to go it was a world of pain, we were all hurting now and could see
the pace dropping ever so slightly on our turns, and the turns lasting slightly
shorter. Never the lass we crossed the line Joe, me & Ben at 14:56 (time
taken on third rider) Simon 5 seconds behind us.
I was chuffed! I felt great throughout and despite it
hurting towards the end, it hurt everybody, so that was kind of ok? To be
honest, I was just pleased to finish strong and not let the guys down! We had
no idea really how we’d done, being the first team off, but as we rolled back
to the start there was a lot of very pro looking riders, lean was certainly the
name of the game here.
Back at the Uni we had dinner and checked the results, joint
5th, what a result! The team (and I) was really pleased with that, and better
than we had hoped for. Beat quite a few good teams too.
Tomorrow is a “rolling” 52 miles road race, so we’ll see
what happens...
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