my legs were feeling pretty tired from a hard couple of days before, the weather looked bad. but i had a good feeling about tonight, and i really enjoyed the course last year coming 6th.
as i arrived at the HQ i knew it would be a good night for me because of a couple of good omens- firstly i was desperate for a poo but couldnt go because there were no toilets, just like last year, and i was wearing my knew lucky socks, just like last year (although last years lucky socks were different).
i recognised a few faces, lots of norward paragons including marcus, and the bloke from fit-for andy davies.
the course was slightly changed this year, making it a bit more hilly, and giving it a hill finish (woop woop!)
there were 4 groups on the road this week, and i was in the scratch group for the first time, though there were no elites this week, the strongest riders bieng a guy from agisco-viner, marcus, andy davies....and dare i say it myself?
we set off with 9 of us in the group and started a hard through and off. pretty quickly 1 guy got dropped and a few others wernt able to do any turns. i felt fine for the first few miles, but then i started to feel that my legs were only at about 95% capacity, but nothing to write home about.
we were making good headway, and by the end of the first lap (7-8 miles) we were only 40 seconds behind the next group. by this time the pace was taking its tole on most of the group, leaving me, marcus, andy, and the agisco-viner bloke doing pretty much a 4 man ttt. it was hard work but good fun.
near half way through the 2nd lap i was the one having to come through after andy, (the previous honour going to marcus). my word it was hard. to get round him i would have to put the same effort in as i would on the attack! so after 4-5 goes coming through after him i skipped my first turn of the race (and i think the last), and left it back to marcus to do
as we hit the finishing hill on the 2nd lap, we had nearly bought back the next group. marcus and andy put in a dig, but i didnt realise until it was nearly to late as i was right at the back. it took a lot of hard work to get back onto them, but im glad i made the effort. we had now caught the group, and we went to the front because they had not caught the group in front of themselves yet
the agisko bloke, me, marcus and andy got a hard through and off going to get catch the group ahead. i couple of times i few of the group we had caught would try and work with us, but they couldnt hack it
halfway round the 3 and final lap we got the next group, and again we went to the front and kept the pace fairly high.
as we neared the finish it was a bit of a battle to keep to the front, but as we hit the finishing hill i was right at the front next to marcus. th group slowed, no one wanting to go first....but then i heard the tale tale signs of power being transfered to some wheels. andy came shooting up from behind and opened up the sprint. marcus got onto his wheel, i was about to get onto it but a couple of guys who had been on Andy's wheel had slipped round me.
i didnt really get to sprint much as i was pinned in behind the 2 guys that came round behind andy. most of my sprint was in the saddle
so in the end i came 5th. pretty happy with that- could of gone better, but could have gone worse.
cheers
stu
