Racing ambitions have been somewhat curtailed this month due to an unfortunate injury that was picked up, ironically, during a race. Despite that I've still managed a TT , 2..ish road races and managed to gain my 1st Category license.
Earlier in July I did a spare of the moment evening 10mile TT on a course I had raced in April knowing it would be a useful indicator on my progress through the season thus far. In April I managed a 19:52 and in this TT I came home in 19:24 which I was very happy with as it shows things are going in the right direction.
Next up was a Regional A road race that was part of the East Mids RR league. I am currently leading the league which makes racing slightly harder being a 'marked' rider. I tried my best to split the field over the climbs and force some breaks but everything I tried was neutralised. Midway through the race I was sprinting up a little rise in the road and felt a twinge/sudden pain at the back of my knee. I eventually forgot about it with the all the adrenaline in my body and continued on. A group of 5 were eventually allowed to roll off the front on the penultimate lap and they quickly gained a 1.5 minute gap to the bunch. In the final 5 miles I jumped out the bunch solo and made an attempt to catch the break. I got to within 10 metres of the group of 5 but ran out of road so had to settle for 6th. Despite the slightly disappointing result, 6th was still enough to get the final few points I needed for my 1st Cat license.
The knee niggle from the race continued to plague me when riding so I took a couple days off the bike before my next race, the Didcot Phoenix Nat B. This was a 90 mile race in which I had company of friends/teammates Ollie and Gill. We started the race with the idea of riding conservatively, knowing it was a long race and I was carrying a niggle. Despite this plan, Ollie was in almost every single move from the start and somehow, just 15 miles into the race I found myself trying to bridge solo to a 2 man break up the road. I guess our 'conservative' racing needs serious work. Regardless, I reached the small break and we started to work well but the gap to the bunch was staying around 30 seconds. 20 minutes later I look behind and see Ollie and Gill bridging over so our 3 man break now became 5. We worked well together but 50 miles into the race and our lead on the bunch was still small. The impetus from our break was beginning to fade as my bad knee began to hurt and to our amusement another rider had his own knee swell up after being stung by a bee. at mile 60 the bunch had a flurry of attacks and a large injection of pace which led to the demise of our breakaway attempts with 25 miles of the original 90 still to race. As soon as we were caught the race was stopped for a couple of minutes due to an incident with a horse and I decided to pull the plug as I had spent a lot of my energy and my knee was not feeling great. It was still a very fun race but I think we should stick to our plan next time rather than get caught up doing attacks with 90 miles still to race.
I have some big races planned for late August/ early September so I plan to get my body fixed as soon as possible, get some good training in and then hopefully try and do something special.
Earlier in July I did a spare of the moment evening 10mile TT on a course I had raced in April knowing it would be a useful indicator on my progress through the season thus far. In April I managed a 19:52 and in this TT I came home in 19:24 which I was very happy with as it shows things are going in the right direction.
Next up was a Regional A road race that was part of the East Mids RR league. I am currently leading the league which makes racing slightly harder being a 'marked' rider. I tried my best to split the field over the climbs and force some breaks but everything I tried was neutralised. Midway through the race I was sprinting up a little rise in the road and felt a twinge/sudden pain at the back of my knee. I eventually forgot about it with the all the adrenaline in my body and continued on. A group of 5 were eventually allowed to roll off the front on the penultimate lap and they quickly gained a 1.5 minute gap to the bunch. In the final 5 miles I jumped out the bunch solo and made an attempt to catch the break. I got to within 10 metres of the group of 5 but ran out of road so had to settle for 6th. Despite the slightly disappointing result, 6th was still enough to get the final few points I needed for my 1st Cat license.
The knee niggle from the race continued to plague me when riding so I took a couple days off the bike before my next race, the Didcot Phoenix Nat B. This was a 90 mile race in which I had company of friends/teammates Ollie and Gill. We started the race with the idea of riding conservatively, knowing it was a long race and I was carrying a niggle. Despite this plan, Ollie was in almost every single move from the start and somehow, just 15 miles into the race I found myself trying to bridge solo to a 2 man break up the road. I guess our 'conservative' racing needs serious work. Regardless, I reached the small break and we started to work well but the gap to the bunch was staying around 30 seconds. 20 minutes later I look behind and see Ollie and Gill bridging over so our 3 man break now became 5. We worked well together but 50 miles into the race and our lead on the bunch was still small. The impetus from our break was beginning to fade as my bad knee began to hurt and to our amusement another rider had his own knee swell up after being stung by a bee. at mile 60 the bunch had a flurry of attacks and a large injection of pace which led to the demise of our breakaway attempts with 25 miles of the original 90 still to race. As soon as we were caught the race was stopped for a couple of minutes due to an incident with a horse and I decided to pull the plug as I had spent a lot of my energy and my knee was not feeling great. It was still a very fun race but I think we should stick to our plan next time rather than get caught up doing attacks with 90 miles still to race.
I have some big races planned for late August/ early September so I plan to get my body fixed as soon as possible, get some good training in and then hopefully try and do something special.
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