As we came out of the short neutralised section onto a smallish hill on the course a London Dynamo rider had pinged off the front, and then to my surprise Paul H was in hot pursuit. Utter madness, this was the start, so I pinged up with them and started a through and off.
Half a lap gone and we were pulling out a good lead, then another couple of really strong riders joined our group. We kept on pushing away and we had a really good gap. A couple of riders in our group were very strong, a guy from Medway Velo was shouting at us all to work hard and a guy from Kingston Wheelers was also doing good strong turns. After a few laps of this madness I have to admit that I went through a bad patch. I got dropped. Nightmare, I could see this nice little group ahead with Paul H in and I could do nothing. But then about a minute later 3 other riders came flying along up to me, led by a really strong Sigma Sport rider on a Cervelo Soloist SL. Well, not one to give up easily I decided to try again and latched onto this little group.
Before long I felt a bit better and started taking turns on the flatter sections, the Sigma guy was a monster he was really doing most of the work. Then within about 15 minutes we were gaining on the earlier break, fantastic. Then we caught them, hello Paul I'm back.
Now we had a group of about 10 and it was all going quite well, but the Medway Velo guy did not like people sitting on and he attacked every now and then. When he did this it was really painful and hard to stay on. At one point he went with the Sigma, Kingston and another guy and they got a good gap on the rest of us. I came past Paul H and said I would pull him back on. I gave it everything and managed to get back onto the group of 5 now, but looked around and Paul was long gone as were another couple of riders I think.
I then sat on the back of this uber strong group doing the odd turn but trying not to do too much as it was far too fast for me with the distance we still had left. The Medway guy eventually had enough and he put in another searing attack, we still had about 4 laps to go, but that was me done, I was dropped.
Ok, I thought I will try and keep up a reasonable tempo and see if I can get to the finish before getting caught. I did a lap on my own and it was really hard work and now I was starting to really suffer on the drags, hitting speeds of 25kmph is not great when you think you have a pack of wolves chasing you down. While cycling around on my own I was saddened to see the Medway Velo guy cycling back the other way, think he punctured, ah well, wish it had happened earlier as I reckon I could have stayed with a smooth functioning group.
Anyway, then a group of 5 other riders catch me up including Paul H. They were not going that quick which was great so I latched onto them doing the odd turn, but trying to save my energy, I had been dropped from groups twice already did not want it to happen again.
Onto the last lap and we were well ahead of the pack, we could not see them at all. Then it was just a bit of cat and mouse towards the finish. I had a go at attacking down the hill before the finish, but did not have the legs. This put me on the front just before the drag towards the final hill. Not great. Anyway, I slowed right up and we had a bit of cat and mouse.
Onto the final hill and it was just a case of survival. My legs were absolutely screwed, I could not feel my feet due to the cold from the rain and no feet warmers (mistake). I was keeping up just about on the bottom of the hill, but then as we approached the top my legs gave way and it was jelly wobbles all over the place. I rolled over the line just after Paul H in 10th place.
That was the hardest race I have ever done, I am happy to get my first ever points in a 2nd cat race, but it was seriously hard work. Paul, can we wait until half way through the race to break next time please
Think Stu won the bunch sprint, so we will have 3 riders with points today. Sylv punctured and George blew, too much riding about on his own in the morning.
Cheers
Marek.....
. i looked back and had about 10m or so on the next guy chasing me, so i put my head down and just rode as hard as i could for the line. but with 50m to go i got cramp again, but there was no way i was going to let up so i just kept hammering it. i stopped just after the line to massage it out. so although i missed the break, i managed to get the bunch sprint at least, coming in 11th- so still in the points.
I think they had both exerted themselfs to the max and I was well proud that they had initiated the descisive break of the race and stayed away from the bunch of wolfs.