arrived at hillingdon with time to spare...most of that time spent looking at the size of the legs of some of the riders!! my god, they made big simons legs look like match sticks!!
on the start line i kept what toks was had said going through my head 'be patient, sneaky and dont burn the matches untill its time to light the bonfire....well to be honest it all went out the window when the race got under way....i was hardly patient, sneaky didn't even come into it, and the bonfire was lit somewhere in the middle of the race, so it was just smouldering ash by the end...
so any back to the race, the pace seamed manageable in the pack...a couple of laps went by and i was mid pack, but confortable-ish...my cornering was not very confident, it had been a while since i had been at hillingdon and i was a bit timid, and by about lap 7 i was near the back...this was when disaster struck!....going up the hill to the finish line a rider a few infront of me lost touch with the rider infront of him, this split about 12 of us off the back...i stupidly was not paying attention, and i could have bridged the gap but was in my own world, a couple of riders got across though.
so there were about 8 of us now and we went for it hell for leather!...trouble is only 3-4 of us were doing the work, and me and another chap were doing most of that anyway. i dug deep and on my turns really pushed myself, one point riding off the front up the hill by mistake but i slowed to keep the group together. by about lap 12 we had closed in on the peleton, we were about 20 metres back, i could smell them we were so close. but then one of the riders who had been sitting in and letting a few of us do all the work just sprinted over to the peleton. this annoyed me a bit as he could have bought as over to them if he wanted.
i tried to bridge the gap but i was nakered from doing so much work. up the hill the peleton slowly got away from us again...i was pretty dis heartened but decided to make the most of it...just work as hard as you can stu, get some good training in....well the work was left to 3 of us again out of a group of about 6-7, i was doing about half the work over all. i was determined we would not get lapped....well we held off until about lap 23 of so, then 3 riders who had broken away from the peleton came up behind us....so i jumped onto them leaving my group behind...my god were they fast, and my god the size of one persons legs nearly made me wet myslef!!
i stuck with these 3 for 2 laps even doing some turns on the front, infact i like to think its down to me they won
but halfway round lap 3 with them one of them put in a dig and there was no way i could follow. so i sat up and waited for the peleton.. they came and i stayed until about lap 27 or so...then because of all my previose work my bonfire was just going out, my legs were on fire, i could not breath any harder, so i sat up and let them go passed...then i got picked up by 4 chaps and went on till the end with them.
im not dissapointed with today it was a 2,3,4 race after all...im a lot more confident on the corners now, (the more nakered i got the faster i was taking them, the more confident i got), and i got a VERY good work out...i think had the group not split i would have been able to stay in the main bunch, although i doubt i could have sprinted at the end...
anyways its clear what i need to do, more intervals and hilly rides
..
cheers,
stu
and try and save a little energy.
