An oddball distance and a bit of a grotty morning, but neither of those mattered as it was position and not a fast time that I was after this morning. The aim was to improve on my group 1 counting event in the SPOCO SE competition; I'd come 19th in the SCCU 10 way back in March, so anything better than that would be worth the trip to Essex. I was hoping that I'd recovered OK from the 12 hour last week.
Not ridden this course before, so I drove it beforehand to get a rough idea. Seemed to be rolling but no steep hills, a pretty good road surface but soaking wet. 5 miles from the HQ to the start meant I had a wet bum before I started, but the roads were drying a bit. For the first time ever I was seeded as a "0", so I had a couple of slower riders ahead of me. Caught the 9 after 2 miles, took it really steady round the roundabout at the turn as I didn't want to slide off in the wet, then put the hammer down again on the way back. Caught the 8 at about 7 miles, and finished in 23:37. That got me 5th place which I'm well pleased with, 14 more SPOCO points than I had before which keeps me in with a good chance of winning the handicap competition.