Lewes Wanderers 30 1/7

[Andrew G]

Back from last night's 10 at 10pm and up early for a trip to just past Uckfield for a 30 on the A22 with Carl.

I was dog tired but went to support Rob Pelham's event and it was lovely sunny morning as I left. Unfortunately it started raining as I drove through Uckfield to the HQ.

I started in light rain but it wasn't too bad, and I like the A22 for racing, it's a bit rolling but a nice stretch of road this far south. I didn't bother with a warm up due to the rain and planned on using the start to get going gradually and build the pace.

All was going well and I had the average up to 24.3mph and holding it comfortably by 10 miles. At about 12 miles the light rain stopped, unfortunately that's because the sky fell in and it absolutely hammered down and was driven in to you by the wind. I hadn't noticed being wet before but was soaked to the skin in seconds. Not nice but the problem was that with the rain this hard my visibility through my glasses was reduced to around 50%. I carried on for a mile to see if it eased but it didn't and didn't look like it was going to for a little while so I pulled in to the side of the road, then turned and soft pedalled back to HQ letting the timekeepers know I was a DNF.

I hate a DNF but with only a vague idea where I was going I felt there was still too far to go to continue safely. Disappointed as I was going well and Rob had put on an excellent event, on the plus side I could cheer myself up with the fantastic cakes.

Carl was off half an hour before me so was on his way back to the finish when the sky fell in, he did a very good 1:10:??

One for the diary next year, a good event, just a shame the weather put paid to my ride but then it is somewhat bizarre this year with all the rain we've had. It's not just raining either but hammering it down, I though Sean would be getting monsoon rain in Singapore not us in SE England!

[carl f]

Yes nice event run by lewis wanderers. Left my house with glorious blue sky,started light drizzle when i got to HQ. Had a blustery shower early out on the bike then on the last leg home it hammered it down!. Made for a dodgy last few miles as that part of the A22 had very dodgy road surface in parts and by that time quite alot of traffic on the road so my thoughts were just to get back to HQ safe and forget about my time
Finished with a 1.10 and 6th place
Steve Dennis won it with a 1.05- think his pb and cr on the course is 1.03?, so a slow day yesterday
As Andrew said,the cake selection after was something else