The day itself was roasting, a very rare treat in the UK racing calendar. For me, I actually prefer to ride in the heat and having looked at the course, I felt confident in terms of being able to do myself justice - there were no big hills and the main drag was assisted with a tailwind as well - all good news.
However, the tailwind to help you back up the wheel obviously reared its head as a bit of a headwind on the way out. On a section where I thought I was going to be knocking out over 30mph, I was struggling to do 26/27mph. Still, I was feeling pretty strong and the shortness of the ten means you can just give it a real bash. The second roundabout was a bit of a pain with a lorry not really giving me the racing line - the cheek of it - but at least I made it round and I heading back for the finish now.
The slight hill was nowhere near as bad as it looked, but the last section just off the main road was quite painful in terms of just trying to squeeze that last little bit out. In hindsight, I probably should have chosen a lower gear for the whole ride and tried to spin out a bit more, especially on the last stretch. Still, I crossed the line in 20:55 and my final position was about where I thought I would be on the day.
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