I think that the last time I took part in a road race, I was probably in the Under 13 category when I used to race in South Africa. Back then, it was about 20 of us on easy to race on roads in the sunshine. Yesterday saw my return to road racing, but this time it was with 70 other pretty hard cyclists on narrow Surrey roads with any number of possible crash causing dangers. The weather report had mentioned that we may be in for some sleet and hail so I got my layers on and headed out for the 60 mile course comprising 9 laps of an undulating course.
The pace at the start was not too bad and after about 2 laps, I thought that things were a bit too sedentary so I slowly (that being the operating word, as it does take a long time) to move to the front of the pack. Once there, I pushed hard out of a corner and then up over a few hills with the hope of breaking up the group a bit. Alas, this did not work and only served to be the opening salvo in the race. From this point on, the pace was erratic, going from flat out to quite slow in a constant yo-yo fashion. This up and down really was not my game though and I was suffering. Some of the other London Dynamos asked if I wanted to be taken to the front at one point to try and help bring a break back in, or perhaps make a move off the front. My legs did not feel too clever though so I rested in the group for a bit longer.
With about two laps to go, the London Dynamo boys started to work a bit harder to bring the break back in - they had managed to get about 90s up the road so it was time for some hard work. I did a couple of stints at the front to narrow the gap and I we started to catch them up. In the end though, it was not enough as they managed to cross the line some 20s before the rest of the pack came across the line with me at the back - I was pretty whacked.
The 60 miles took us less than 2:30 though, averaging close to 25mph for the ride. Still, it was good fun though and I would love to do some more in the future. I have 2 day race in May, so that will be my next chance for some more road racing.
This is more for me, but it may be of interest to others. I did my first FTP test this evening which basically means using the turbo trainer to knock out a 20min effort and see how many watts you can put out over that period. This value can then be used to produce more sophisticated training schedules to improve my TT'ing ability. I would imagine that I may try do one of these a month now leading up to all my major TT's in the summer.
So, here goes:
Bike: Cervelo Soloist
Turbo: Tacx Flow
Calibration: +3
Slope: +2
Tyre Pressure: 100PSI
POWER: 436W
HR Ave: 170bpm
HR Max: 178bpm
In hindsight, I think I started off a bit too hard as I was defnitely getting weaker past the 10 minute mark. Plus, I had cycled pretty hard on the way back to Walton last night - doing some hard efforts on the good sections of the road - did not really feel that in the legs too much though.
Last Sunday I finally got my cycling season underway with a hilly 30 mile TT in Marlow. I had entered the 2up category with my mate from London Dynamo and although we only had one other team to beat, they were a team with form so it was not going to be a walk in the park - plus, I personally wanted to beat all the riders who were doing the course on their own.
As soon as I got there, I realised just how much I had missed being on the TT bike, it is just so much faster than the normal road bike and it felt good to be back. After our little warm up, we were off for the 30 miles of tearing it up round the lanes of Henley and Marlow. I realised from the start that my training over the winter had paid off in that I felt really strong and things were definitely going as I had wanted. I found that I was able to work the hills a lot better, perhaps due to some of the weight loss.
Anyway, we both knew that the worst part of the course was all going to come in the last 5 miles. Basically, the course was undulating for about 25 miles and then from the turn in Marlow it was one long old drag back to the finish, not to mention the really steep section that took you to the actual finish line. We managed to get to the bottom of the hill with an average speed of 45kph. In the back of my mind I had wanted to break the course record of 1.07 which had been set by a really good time triallist. I thought we were going to make it, but the last climb just seemed to go on and on. Still, I was still feeling good though and managed to drag myself up there staying on the big chainring, in fact, I even managed to keep it in the big gear on the last section.
We eventually crossed the line about 1 minute off the course record. I like to think that we could have been a lot closer or even beaten it if we had not been held up by horse trailer and some other erratic driving which is pretty annoying when you are only trying to go fast. Having had a look at the Garmin we covered several miles at over 30mph and on the way into Henley we averaged almost 50mph for 1 mile - pretty scary on the extensions and a bumpy road.
So, at end of the day, we managed 1:08:45 for the 30 miles and that did give us the win over the other team, by about 4 minutes and we also had the fastest time of the day. So, job done really! For me, the best thing is that I know that I am on my way to being in good form for this season. I still have a fair amount of work to do on the turbo but things are certainly looking good.
My next race is a 10 mile TT where I am hoping to get a time which will allow me to qualify for the National 10 Mile Champs.
Results are here: RESULTS
Way back in 2006, it was at the MIlton Keynes Half that I first managed to break 90 minutes for the half marathon distance. Yesterday was three years down the line though and things have moved on a bit. I had set myself an ambitious target of 1:20:30 which was perhaps slightly out of reach, but you never know, the right weather etc and it could have been possible. When I woke up yesterday I had a sneaky suspicion that the 80 minute run was not on though as I could hear the wind from inside the house. I just hoped it would die down a bit before we started.
We finally made it to the start line with about one minute to spare thanks to a massive tailback and a little detour to get to the start line - perhaps not the best prep, but the run from the car to the line was at least something. We set off and I instantly thought to myself that I was actually feeling quite good, I still have a bit of a cough, but I was able to manage that okay. I missed the first couple of mile boards and then saw the first 5k board and realised that I must be a bit up on schedule as I went through that in 17:30 - woops. I kind of knew now that I had started a bit hard and that I would just need to try and slow down a bit, get into a good rhythm and see how things went. My pace was good though, going through the 4, 5 and 6 mile markers ahead of schedule and then going through 10k in 36:45 and I was through half way in 39:00....there was no way I was going to be doing a 1:18 though!
It was about at 8 miles though that things started to go wrong. I think that either my running shoes are worn out or the socks I had on were not the best, but at this point, my feet were getting so painful as I could feel a blister starting to form. The pain got too much though and I definitely started to slow down, I even thought about just jogging round the rest as I just could not really land on the ball of my foot. At mile 9 I stopped and decided to just take the socks off and see if this made any difference. It still hurt, but it was certainly better. The only problem now was that we were now on a very exposed piece of road and it would be hard to describe just how hard it was running into the gusting wind. It was like running in water it was so hard to move forward. My mile splits for the 3 miles or so that were in to the wind were about 30 seconds slower than they had been and they finally meant, along with the sock removal, that I was now behind schedule.
I ploughed on though and eventually regained some speed in the last mile or so and managed to put in some 6:20'ish miles to eventually bring me home in 1:22:32. Not that bad I suppose but i am slightly annoyed with the shoe incident...it would have been a much better indicator of my fitness if I had been able to run properly all the way. Still, I shouldn't complain, doing a 1:21:45 (my Garmin time which removed the sock change) when I am not doing anywhere near as much running as last year is not that bad I suppose. I had also been out on the bike on Saturday and done a 1:08 for 25 miles which included a fair bit of stopping and starting round Regent's Park with what seemed like a constant headwind.
Next weekend the real racing starts when I have a two up team time trial where me and my mate are going to be tearing round Henley on our TT bikes - I just can't wait.
Recently, I had been spending a large amount of time trying to decide whether or not I wanted or in fact 'needed' a new racing bike and what sort of bike I should get bearing in mind the limitations on finance and space. For ages I had been thinking that the Boardman Team bike would be a good bet as it was such a good deal for £1000. However, as part of my extensive and time consuming trawling of the internet looking at the various options, I stumbled upon the Royles page and I suddenly found exactly the right thing. They had a Cervelo Team Soloist with full Ultegra groupset for not much more than the Boardman. My TT bike is a Cervelo and I am massively impressed with that and I could not find one bad review for the Soloist. So, it arrived yesterday and I have already done my first ride...it is quite amazing how different it feels to the heavy battered and bruised Ribble which has now been sold. That was part of the plan...I am actually decreasing the number of bikes that I own as the Ribble has already sold and I'll be selling the Langster once I have got it all sorted out.
So...here she is..
This is last year's model of the Soloist (hence the £700 reduction on the price tag) and perhaps the last one they will make as it has now been replaced with the S1.
