The first National championship of the year has come around very quickly, and it was a return to the village of Sawtry near Peterborough. This village played host to the 2011 British Time Trial Championship in September, and I had a nightmare of a ride... I was hoping to put those demons behind me and put in a solid performance. Conditions were chilly and pretty windy, it was a headwind out to the turn, and a tailwind home, so the first 5 miles would be crucial to the result. While covering the rolling single carriageway 10 mile course, riders would have to tackle no less than 7 roundabouts meaning that a traffic-free run would aid riders a lot.
I was #120 so had a long time to wait before my start time, this gave me plenty of time to get everything sorted and have a solid warm up. I spent 30 minutes on the rollers before rolling out to the start a mile or so down the road. Standing on the line waiting to start it was very breezey, and the chill was rippling through my skinsuit.
I started off hard, knowing that there was lots to be gained on the outward leg and the lactate was immediately there in the legs. I negotiated the first 2 roundabouts with ease, I took the third slightly wide and locked up slightly on the 270 degree turn, I slowed right down but sprinted out hard and probably only lost a couple of seconds. The next straight section was extremely tough with the headwind, but I eventually got to the turn with an average speed around 25.5mph. I turned and the tailwind was obvious, but the last 5 miles were still tough as I had spent a lot of effort in the first half of the race. I kept pushing hard and a few people along the course were cheering me on, so I kept the pace up right to the line, sprinting out of the last roundabout and lunging over the finish line in a time of 21:56.
Turns out that 5 of us recorded that time, including Dan Barnett who went off 1 minute behind me, very good seeding by the organisers! So I learned today that the step up from junior to senior is a large one... I finished in joint 40th place, over 2 minutes down on Michael Hutchinson who won the event in a phenomenal 19:40. I was happy with my performance as I know I still have a long time to develop and gain more strength to match the top guys.
I have a hard week of training planned over the next seven days to get into my new regime of training. Incorporated into this week will be two midweek criterium races at Portsmouth on Wednesday and CastleCombe on Thursday, followed by a round of the National Time Trial Series on Saturday. It's going to be a tough week, but I want to keep improving and training hard so I am stronger, fitter and faster for the latter part of the season!
Thanks for reading!
Ciao.
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