RTTC National 25 - 42nd - 59:46

I think it is fair to say, I don't think I will ever do a harder 25 miles in the rest of my cycling career. I always knew that the course this year was not exactly going to be my dream course, i.e. flat dual carriageway, but there was always a hope that it would not be that bad. After arriving on Saturday, we all took a quick recce of the course to see what we had in store - it was not nice. The start involved a short ramp a la Tour de France style but there was certainly no need for this as the next few hundred meters were down a 15% descent in to a corner. I am not one for risking my life either, so I knew the start would not be that quick. Round the corner and it was straight in to a steep hill which kicked up and then dragged on for a few more miles at a gentle incline. This was the theme for the rest of the recce really, you were either going up or down - at least the road surface was good I thought.

Come race day, we managed to get a glimpse of how tough it was out there with seeing the ladies' times - only one of them had gone under the hour. I started to worry that I would not be able to sneak under the hour myself, especially as the only one who had gone under had beaten me the year before. In light of this, I set the Garmin's virtual partner to effectively ride a 59:59 as this seemed, at the time, to be the best case scenario.

The start ramp and the town centre start were quite nice in the end, almost felt professional for the 5 seconds before the fear set in on the descent...I was a bit of a wimp really, braked too hard and then gave myself more work than was needed on the ascent. All the bravado beforehand of climbing this in the big ring soon vapourised as I found myself working hard....I was in bottom gear though. My new plan was just to try and spin the hills and work the flatter sections. I figured any big ring work on the hills would only come back to haunt my quads later on in the day.

On the way out, this plan seemed to work and I was able to keep a pretty decent speed up. I hit the halfway point in about the right time and the tailwind home was now a gentle hand to help you up some of the hills. With about 5 miles to go I realised that the sub 60 was in fact on the cards and the thought of just missing it did not bear thinking about. Thankfully, my pacing seemed to pay off and I actually did not feel too bad for the last few miles, I was able to up the speed a bit and finally...across the line...59:46...phew.

I was actually really pleased with my slowest ever time in a 25. The course was far from ideal for a big guy like me and I had managed to pace it quite well. 42nd was nothing to write home about, but top 40 was my aim going down there and with the lack of turbos this year and the fact that I am happy with my running and swimming in the lead up to Copenhagen were good comfort.

The Garmin Output for the ride can be seen HERE