Weekend of 8^th/ 9^th February 2014

Saturday 8^th- last Men’s e/1/2/3 race at Hillingdon

Extremely tough weather conditions for the last race in the series. The strong gusty winds were a big element in this race, causing very difficult racing conditions. In fact, in the 4^th cat men’s race before ours, there were 4 crashes because of it, which was very high considering there had been virtually no other crashes in the rest of the series.

 

Start line for the e/1/2/3 men's race - I'm in the centre

 

Our race started off what seemed to me faster than usual, and they usually start off very fast!! For the first few laps I was hanging on in the bunch but exerting way too much energy to be able to hold this for very long. As soon as I lost the wheel in front it seemed like I rocketed off the back of the group, within seconds the main group had made quite a lot of distance on me. Despite this, I was pleased as I was the last of the 3 women in the race (the other 2 racing for the new team SPEG – Project 51) to drop off the group. I then rode in a small group riding at a decent pace as it took the main group quite a while to lap us. When the main group came past I joined the group; the commisaires of this race seem to allow us women to re-join the main group as they understand that it is tough for us and we use the races mainly for training. I managed to then stick with the bunch for the rest of the race, this was very challenging and by the end of the race my legs were really heavy and I was glad the race was over as I was extremely tired.  

                                  Today’s race was certainly very tough and I was pleased to finish 20^th (1st woman) out of a field of over 40, especially as so many of the men actually abandoned the race because of the tough conditions.

 

Sunday 9^th – 95 mile road ride

                   When one sets out to do the longest ride they have so far in their lives, one should start off the ride slowly so that they can definitely last the whole ride, well not me…. I had planned to do a 60 mile club run with Thames Velo Club which started at 10am, and ride there and back which was about 18 miles each way, meeting Anastasia to ride the last 10 miles together there and back. The big problem was that I set off late to get to Anastasia’s house in the first place and I didn’t accommodate enough time anyway for having a strong head wind the whole way and mostly uphill to get to the start of the club run. In an ideal situation I would have used the ride as a good warm up, what I ended up doing was having to really push on the pedals, not warmed up, to make sure I got there on time, which took a lot out of my legs.

               The actual club run with Thames Velo Club was really good, it was the first time I have been on a ride with them, having decided to join them on their ride today as I knew that Anastasia was going and I wanted to get a bigger ride in to improve my endurance. The strong winds made the ride even tougher, but overall I enjoyed the route with not too many nasty hills apart from the one right at the end. There was one hiccup in the ride… the flooded road!!! It would have been impossible to ride on this particular road so we rode on the pavement, which still had quite deep water. The worst bit though was when riding on this pavement we came across some driveways so the pavement lowered and we all got absolutely soaked! My shoes were absolutely waterlogged, thankfully they dried quite quickly (one bonus of riding with bonts on is they don’t have much fabric and padding so the water dries quicker!:)) When I finished the club run I rode back to Anastasia’s house, before then riding back home at a easy pace to warm down. It was much nicer on the way back considering I had a nice tail wind and it being mainly downhill.

             A great day being able to knuckle down and get lots of good miles in, no doubt I was absolutely tired by the end and glad to be off the bike, after 6 hours being on the bike!!