Redmon CC 25

[Dominic]

I like Andrew got a bit of shock this morning at the change of weather. Unlike Andrew I had only packed arm warmers and really wished I had gloves to put on. I was off 4 from the end so was not off until 9.26am it was only 4 degrees then. Oh and there was some wind.

It didn't seem too bad on the start and turning onto the single carriageway A24 towards Dorking and up to the dual carriageway. When I got there expecting to speed up as is is predominately downward sloping, I found it hard to keep 53 x 16/17 going. This continued until I turned off the A24 onto the A29. The A29 takes a bit of a while to get going but by the time I got to Ockley it was full speed ahead on 53 x 13/14. I still did harbour a chance of a reasonable time but this all changed when I was back on the A264 back into the head wind. I had been caught by Lawrence Harding who was off as last man just before getting back to Broadbridge Heath so everything was going to plan.

Onto the A264 to Robin Hood roundabout into the wind which gives you a nice blast along towards Southwater but of course it's headwind all the way back. It was a real struggle for the last half mile towards the finish, changing down because of the wind then changing back up to force myself to go faster.

The downside of getting late start was traffic. I had to slow down once on the A24 because traffic would not pass another competitor and it was a similar story on the A29. On the A264 I had to stop at 2 of the roundabouts and slow down to get across to go round Southwater. No excuses really my legs felt okay for the first effort of the year.

My time was a 1.02.30 which was my slowest ever on that course. Lawrence Harding won with a 53.33. There were a couple of 56s on the board aswell To put it into context time wise Shaun Kennedy who was off a minute in front of me did a short 59 and Keith Coffey was just over the hour. Not sure how he managed that after yesterdays road race aswell.

[Andrew G]

Good to get going again even if it is in the cold and wind . Sounds similarly nasty conditions for you judging by those times, we all need to get our prayer mats out for next week .