Any way the lead weeks lead up had not been ideal (here are the excuses
) Tapered the training the previous week and so this week had a full week as it was the start of a new block. I went out in the 17's on saturdays CR just to have a little bit of a rest. Oh and saturday night went out for a meal and a few drinks: 4 pints of san miguel, 2 bottles of Peroni, 2 glasses of red wine, 1 glass of prosecco and 2 shooters 
. I was pretty hammered drunk. + a late night.Anyway off we went approx 35 riders. The normal people went out fast while I like to hang back a little and wait. If I can stick with the top 6 or 7 riders for the first lap then they can be caught. There is no point going deep into the red too early on. That is not what the first 3 riders had in mind though, They went for it and blew the rest of us away.
I chased hard for 2 laps and manged to get up to 4th. At this point 1.5 minutes behind 3rd, at points I would get glimpses of him through the woods and shout for him to slow down.
As it happened he did slow down (with a puncture
) on the final lap. That was lucky as I would not have caught him otherwise. So with a lap to go my bottle bitches shouted I was 1 minute 10 seconds behind 2nd place and I chased hard, catching who I thought was 2nd place on the last climb.We had a little chat: Me "you in sport mate" him "yes, are you ?" me "yes" him "s*%t". I thought what luck.So I dug deep and climbed hard, out the saddle at the top for a sprint to the line. I had done it 2nd place !. No that was not the case, he still had a lap to go (lapped).
2 smug riders sat at the finish having finished some 3 minutes ahead me. There we have it, a 3rd place. Bring on round 3.
I have learnt that unlike Sylv I cannot go out drinking and still win and that its nice to have Sylv and George around as everyone chases them and then blows up on the 3rd lap
