Regional Champs and the rest of May!

So May has been pretty good. A few exams and a fair bit of bike riding and some decent weather, it's not been so bad.

In terms of racing, it all kicked off with the 3rd round of the Elveden Road Race series and the weather was very different to the first round, sun was out, no rain etct only for the first lap. Also different was that it was now a 2/3/4 not a 3rds only and that Laura Trott was racing - she's only got 2 Olympic golds or something like that.  After the first lap it was grim, the weather turned for the worst, it started raining, hailing and the wind started howling.  The net effect was a mix of cross winds the Dutch would be scared of and rain the Welsh would struggle to deal with.  With the wind everything split up into smaller groups pretty quickly and riders were being blown across the track.  At one point my mountain bike skills were called upon when I ended up on the slippy mud.  It then occurred to me that my bunch position had been horrendous up to this point and there were about 3 groups ahead of me, and that I should probably attempt to bridge the gap(s).  I jumped solo and rode across the first gap, went straight through the next group and towed a couple of stragglers with me.  Beginning to feel the lactate I flicked the elbow a couple of times.  Alas, they would not come through.  That said, if you're relying on me - i.e. the person least suited to riding in windy conditions in the world (maybe), to pull you through the cross-wind sections you should probably a long hard look in the mirror and harden up.  Then at this point I realised there had actually been 5 groups ahead of me initially.   So I jumped again, and whilst it took a while I got up to the third group, I got there without expending too much energy, particularly considering the amount of wind there was.  I sheltered there for a bit and recovered from my efforts.  The weather had begun to die down a bit and the group wasn't working well together so myself and Matt (who runs Mud Sweat & Gears) worked together to get up to the second group.  It took a while, again we had some people jump on our move and not contribute to the work... *rolls eyes*.  It's kind of annoying when you put in a solid effort, teetering upon the red line, flick your elbow, Matt comes through, does the same, he flicks his elbow and the other riders just look at each other and then you know, that you have to come through to keep it going, expending even more energy unnecessarily.  It's not as if we're getting tactical and racing for the win, we're trying to get up to the next group, it becomes a lot easier if we work together, instead everyone seems to be rather negative and are content to watch others fail if they're failing too.  I don't think its a fitness issue, these guys have 2nd cat licence and can produce a hell of a lot more power than I can, they must be capable of doing at least what I do... Eventually we got up to the 2nd group with Laura Trott in it, only to find out there was a breakaway of 8 a minute and half up the road.  So it was kind of a wasted effort, but good training all the same.

The weather was relatively good at this point, believe it or not.  Yep, that is Laura Trott next to me too...

Matt and I then attempted to bridge up to the leading group, and strung out the group of 12 or so that was there, fortunately a few others contributed to the efforts this time and we brought the gap down to a minute, but we ultimately failed.  The hail picked up again and I lost a contact lens - so I couldn't see much and riding through and off was interesting to say the least.  I was struggling a bit by now but I'd worked out a strategy whereby I'd hit the front just before the corner, take the corner where l'd gain a fair few bike lengths and recover whilst they caught up.  Some may say this would upset the 'smoothness' of the group, but I say some of the other guys should man up and stop braking like it's tight alpine hairpin and you're doing 100kph.  I guess it was kind of useful that most people were intent on cornering like my Nan, or worse still, like Wiggo.  Some others finally started to do some work, so I sat on for a bit and that's pretty much all there is to say about that race...  Unsurprisingly I felt ill all week after this race.

Cold Ollie.

The following weekend were the Eastern Mtb Champs, at Thetford... I'm not a big fan of Thetford - it's flat and un-technical.  I'd tapered off for this race so in terms of 'fitness' and 'freshness' I was in very good shape, but I had a bit of cold, so I couldn't enjoy my full capabilities that day.  Back onto the subject of the course, the irony is I crashed less than a kilometer into my practice lap - I said 'un-technical' didn't I?  I hit the first two loose, dusty corners flat out, both wheels sliding (it was epic) and then ran out of talent in the third corner, I looked in the 'talent bag' and it was well and truly empty...  Some one rear ended me, my chain was off and my right grip wasn't really on the handlebars anymore, my chain guide prevented getting the chain back on. So, a quick run back to base and the team mechanic (Dad) sorted it out and I was off again.  I definitely didn't very nearly crash on the same corner again (ok I did).  I eventually made it round the lap in the end.  The circuit was ridiculously fast and I'd planned where to make my attacks.  

Beetroot downed, gel in and race kit on and off to the start line to be gridded.  The temperature was ramping up and garmins were showing 20 odd degrees, positively tropical for this time of year and a stark contrast to the previous weekend!  Conditions, weather wise were good for me. This time we were gridded behind the Masters which wasn't too great - they're are more of them and there's a greater variance ability in their category.  So when the gun finally went I found myself stuck behind some slower starters and lost a fair bit of time to the two other leading guys in my category, I went into the red a fair bit getting up to them.  Eventually I managed to bridge the gap joining their train just before the end of the first lap.  The race was now on.

Part of the 'train'.

One of the other juniors then dropped of the pace leaving two of us to battle it our for the win.  Which lead to some pretty aggressive track-esque style riding, where we'd slow down to little more than a walking pace and then one of us would attack - the other would stay stuck to the wheel and hang for dear life, this inevitably lead to a few close-calls and use of elbows, in a bid to make it first to the singletrack.  This style of riding was probably far from conducive to fast lap times, and it certainly wasn't economical use of energy. 

Hmm... my shoulders look considerably bigger than the rest of me.

We got down to the final lap and we were still together, I was sure Sean would beat me in a sprint so I knew I had to get away.  So I attacked at the pre-planned places (basically where the trail had an upward gradient)  and I got a gap after my second attack (I may have had a little help...), so I pretty much pedaled hard till I went into the red and held it as long as I could without blowing up catastrophicallly.  I caught up with another rider who towed me a bit and whom then dropped off the pace and said 'you're clear now' so I backed off a little bit, zipped up my jersey and pedaled onto the finish line and then showed off how I can ride my bike hands free (it's really, really hard, I promise...).  

All that was left to do was to put the arms in the air! 

Seeing as this race was one of my goals for the year I was rather pleased to win!  I could now finally focus on my exams.  Unfortunately training has been irregular and a little sparse since then.  I hadn't raced till 4 weeks after this which is a bit disappointing.