April Update (ok, the last day of march is included too...)

Training has been very low in volume but very high intensity of late, in a bid to make more time for revision and unnecessary procrastination.  Bit of shame really as the sun is starting to make an appearance now from time to time and I'd rather be outside doing a few more hours than 6-8 a week.  Unfortunately there are bigger things in life than riding a bike (i.e. not failing your a-levels) and I'm not about to become one of the guys who pretends he's a pro rider.  When, in reality they don't have a job and ride their bike all day instead.  If you're a junior or u23 with a genuine chance on picking up a pro contract then fair enough, but I fall down on the latter half of that caveat!

Anyway, onto racing....  Scroll down if road racing and disappointment aren't your thing!

Interestingly, I did my first ever proper road race, one that's not a crit.  The Braintree road race, which took place in the lanes of Suffolk.  I was promised it would be a hilly course - it wasn't, but hey everything's relative... Unfortunately it was a bitterly cold day and this meant I was going to struggle, despite it being a 3/4 race and being layered up with two pairs of leg warmers on.  Yep, about 10k from the end, the inevitable happened.  Nasty bit of pain and an immobile left leg, it was cramp time.  I went over the power file and it wasn't anything I wouldn't normally be able to deal with, in any sense but I definitely didn't eat enough either.  Yeah it annoyed me, the finish line was just after a little incline and I was looking forward to jumping at 1100-1200 watts on it, in the bunch sprint and I reckon that would have been fairly successful.  Oh well, onto the next one.

Next up was the Chelmer RR, 2/3/4 and 60 miles - quite possibly the flattest course, ever.

I'll be honest with you, I don't even know why I bothered turning up to this race.  I got dropped within the first half an hour and I was way, way too fatigued to even think about racing, let alone go for some points.  My TSB was -45 on the day of the race, for those of you not familiar with WKO/training peaks that can be roughly translated as 'you're f'ed and need a decent rest spell'.  Again going over the power data it was nothing wouldn't normally be able to deal with, but in the context of how tired I was I wasn't surprised.  Even if I had been rested, it was too flat for me to do any real damage, so it's not a 'biggie'.

I was down to race the national junior Hog Hill GP and then noticed that 117 people had entered and that just had 'broken collar bone and no points' written all over.  So, I did my own club's road race, the Ken Wright Memorial road race - 60 odd miles and a 2/3/4.  The sun was out but temperatures were still quite cold and I didn't wear leg warmers, big mistake.  All went rather merrily up until about 4 lap to go, where I saw one of my teammates (Don't worry Trev, mistakes happen and I honestly don't care that it happened as long as it serves as a moral hazard - don't let it put you off racing either!) go down and the sounds of carbon & asphalt began... so I bunny hopped over one guy's seat post but my rear wheel clipped his bars and I landed awkwardly and ended up in heap with a couple of riders.  No road rash was a bonus and only a couple of bruises, I jumped back on - promptly jumped off again to put my chain back on and to re-align the rear break.  The chase back on was a solo one and took 3 minutes and was done at >5.5w/kg so it was hard.

The power-file revealed that I did indeed, 'go-big'.

I did get back on and looked to move up the group, unfortunately the warm up balm was wearing off and my legs were getting cold.  Guess what... I cramped a lap later.  Again, I went over the power-file and it was within me.  I still think some solid sweet spot & endurance work will be need to make it to the end in good condition, so there's more training to be done!  Also, yet again I didn't eat enough.  I will learn eventually.  It's quite easy, those gels/food in your back pocket - eat them.  Those leg warmers in your kit bag - put them on.

Now, for some nobbly tyre action.

This was my 2nd mtb race of the season and was round 2 of the National Series, I didn't bother doing the 1st round as I lacked the form at that point (see http://oeracing.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-road-to-2nd-cat-part-1-and-why.html to find out why).  The race was in depths of Cornwall so Dad and myself drove down on Friday afternoon/evening, so we had plenty of time to get organised and get practice in the next day.  Which revealed that the course was a) gnarly (or whatever the cool kids say) b) pretty fun c) rocky d) had a few climbs and e) I might have cold coming.  I like climbs, I weigh very little and as result go a bit faster than average up them.

Fish-eye = good!
credit: Rob Barker 

The next day brought race day, I was a little nervous and had a bit of a tingly throat.  My warm up went well so I was feeling rather optimistic.  I was gridded on the back row, in a field of roughly 30.  I made sure to charge full gas off the start line in a bid to make up places as early as possible - it worked quite well but there was still some traffic on the singletrack.  We hit the first climb and I began coughing and started going backwards - usually I do most of the going forward on the climbs so clearly I wasn't having a great day.  I took back two places place when a rider hesitated going into a wall ride sort of thing  so I nipped up the inside of them on the off camber bit.  I then lost more places on flat section into a head wind but that's to be expected.

One of the shallower climbs, the headwind made it feel harder!

The 2nd lap brought more sub-standard ascending, but some uncharacteristically good descending.  I even managed to commit to a fairly big (by xc race standards) drop in and overtake a rider who went over the bars on it and not crash into him!  The 3rd lap was generally disappointing, I was on my own, still coughing and struggling with a lower back issue which I though I'd dealt with (grrr!).  Ascending and descending were equally bad and I was looking forward to getting the last lap in.  During said lap my legs finally woke up, I stopped coughing and my back stopped hurting - result!  I concentrated on hammering the climbs and keeping smooth in the descents, but I had one very near miss on the aforementioned drop in - I basically went too slow into it, endo'ed half way down with only one foot clipped in, I survived though.  I rode quite slowly for a while attempting to work out how I survived, then realised I was still racing and put the hammer back down.  Interestingly my 4th lap ended up being my fastest and I reckon I could have kept that pace up all race if I wasn't coughing and such.  That would have put me somewhere in the group of 3 ahead of me.  I managed 16th in the end.  So, I actually exceeded expectations!  I was looking for 20th or thereabouts.

Race data here: http://app.strava.com/activities/51250751#kudos

A video of the race can be found here too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-M2qo4gmKY&feature=youtu.be

So yeah, my next race will be the Eastern XC champs on the 19th of May at Thetford, and I may or may not do a crit in the meantime. My people, who may or may not exist shall confirm at a later date.

It's not been going quite as well as I might have hoped for, but it's not horrendous and I've got some specific fitness issues to deal with, but they'll be dealt with in good time!

As ever, thanks for reading.  Don't forget to follow me on twitter and strava!
Linky:  https://twitter.com/ozza_e and http://app.strava.com/athletes/310670