This week was a double header, with a Wednesday club 10 on the Holmwood course and then the SCCU 10 yesterday on the faster G10/57 course. Wednesday was almost cancelled with torrential rain earlier in the day, but my faith in the met office was restored as they predicted accurately that the rain would clear from about 3pm. What I didn't know, with my limited meteorological knowledge was that with a passing thunderstorm, high humidity and a damp road would provide almost perfect tt conditions. In fact as I sat in the car park at the start, the trees were not moving at all, with the wind dropping to nothing. So perfect conditions, feeling great. Time to go after my best 10 time of 23:41, set two years ago.
It was a rubbish 10 for me. We didn't have a pusher off, which is very unusual, and of course it took me a few seconds to get clipped in. I over-compensated and as I went up the first rise I was pushing far too hard. Two miles later a tractor pulled out in front of me on a downhill stretch just before the first roundabout and with other traffic around I had to slow up, which left me carrying a lot less speed up the next rise. It was all feeling like very hard work but I regrouped at the turn and tried to refocus as the A24 dropped back down to Beare Green. My quads were absolutely screaming and I was 'mashing' on the pedals far too hard. As I hit the last half mile I had two riders in front and I used thee guys as a target, catching one of them before the end. I felt I had completely blown it. Despite it just being a small club 10, I had gone for it too hard and I just didn't feel very fast. Bah.
So I waited for Frank, our timekeeper, to come back to the carpark to give us our times and I was thinking I might just have squeaked to a new pb. I had to blink and triple-check when I looked for my time. 22:47!! 54 seconds faster than my previous best and on a slower course. To say I was stunned was an understatement. As you can imagine, I was a happy chappy. I was beaten into second place by Dale who rode a 22:04, which was a great ride.
It was a couple of days of easy one hour rides on the way home from work before getting the tt bike out again for Saturday morning's SCCU 10; the same event and course where I set my pb in 2014. The weather was no where near as good with the temperature a very cool 9 degrees and a stiff northerly wind of about 10-15mph, so far from ideal. My plan here though was to just ride it better and engage more of my pedal stroke when compared to Wednesday's effort. I thought it might be possible to do a low 24 in these conditions.
it was a much better ride from me. I controlled my effort and paced it well and I was lucky, not having to slow down on any of the ten or so roundabouts that I had to negotiate. I have found this course pretty hard to ride in the past with a nasty climb right at the start but I felt really strong throughout. As I crossed the line and stopped to unclip my helmet and have my usual dry heave by the side of the road, I knew that it was my best ever 10. Not my fastest, but I felt that I could not have paced it any better. So I spun gently back to the HQ, got changed and had a look at the results board. Unbelievably, my time was exactly the same as Wednesday, 22:47!! The really pleasing thing from my point of view was that Dale beat me again, but he was slower and only 19 seconds ahead. I have never been that close to him before and I think it shows how well I paced it and how far my training has brought me. It is still very early in the season. One of my main goals for this season was to go sub 23. Well I have done that, and I believe that on the right course, on the right day, sub 22 is possible. Blimey. Maybe I am becoming a proper tester.
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