Cutmill, too late baby...

[Marek]

Today raced at Cutmill. This is the other side of Guildford and is usually a reasonably hilly course but not too bad. But today, they did a shorter loop which meant we had to take in a climb 9 times. The climb is about 2.5 to 3km long, which for a heavyweight like me is pretty tough going. As the race started a group of 4 riders took off straight away, I recognised one of them as being a pretty strong rider. I was really badly positioned so had to move my way up through the pack to the front. When I got to the front the 4 riders had a reasonable gap, but nothing that I felt would stay away with a concerted chase. Initially I tried to jump off the front and chase on my own. This came to no avail as I just seemed to get the peleton riled up. They say on my wheel for a bit with me stomping out as much as I could to close the gap. Another guy thankfully came through and then I realised that actually I felt pretty crap.

I went to the front again and tried again, but the legs were feeling rubbish. I decided to hide, the break then just rode away. They were a pretty strong group and after about 2 laps they had 30 seconds on us. I was literally hanging on the back of the peleton for pretty much the whole race. Each lap the peleton got smaller and smaller with riders being shelled out on the hill every lap. Therefore every lap I was having to ride around the slower guys to latch onto the back again. I was having my own race at the back of the bunch, a race to stay on, pretty demoralising when I thought I was going to have good form today.

2 laps to go and the peleton pretty much gave up and the pace slowed a bit. I felt a lot better in the last couple of laps and managed to move up a bit for the sprint. Unfortunately I was not well positioned, blocked in on the inside. The sprint was launched to my right and although I had enough to stay with it, I was not up the group enough and came in mid pack. No idea of my placing but was not impressive.

I hate missing breaks, this one went so quick today though it was really surprising. They did well though as it was a real tough course. The Elites were racing after us, I would not have liked to have been riding in that race, the 3ds was painful enough.

Cheers

Marek....