June & July Update Part 1

I have got so much to catch up on since the last blog, it started with UK 70.3 on June 16^th, then Challenge Aarhus on the 23^rd, VC Norwich Road race on the 7^th July, Lowestoft Training camp from the 10^th-14^th July finishing with a 100 mile TT (yes it was as bad as it sounds), then the Vachery Triathlon yesterday on the 21^st. So I’ve been pretty busy with races.

UK 70.3 race report

Challenge Aarhus race report

VC Norwich Road Race

My Dad was marshalling at this race and I wanted a hard training ride so thought I might as well do this road race as it was pretty local to me and if I rode home I would get just over 100 miles in so it would be a good days training. The race was a 60 mile road race for Category 2/3/4 riders.

I was racing for my local team Strada sport for this race and it was a really nice change as I do like the team aspect of road races. The aim for the race was to take turns attacking and get a few of us in the break. There’s something about road racing I think where if you have done quite a few and are experienced you can just tell when a break is going to get away. I don’t know what it is but it’s just like a sense so I knew it was a good time to attack and just went really hard and then found myself away off the front with 4 others. The first few miles are always pretty tough when you get away s you have to ride really hard to establish a lead and get out of sight from the bunch. But after about 10 miles we were away. We got time splits every so often and were told on the 2^nd lap that there was a group of 15 trying to come across so we carried on working hard and the gap went up to about 1 minute 30 and then 2 minutes. However on the 4^th lap out of 5 we were getting splits saying that a different group of 10 were now coming across and that they were only 45 seconds behind. We started working hard again and you could tell people in the break were feeling it and it was left to me and one other guy to do most of the work. However the time was still coming down but I knew if we made it to the hill up to the finish I could attack up there as hard as possible and then try and solo the last lap. So last time up the hill I went as hard as possible and managed to get a ga, I just put my head down for the last 11 miles and managed to solo it. It was a really nice win and was the road race which I won for the first time in back in 2008.

Here is the strava link to the race:

http://app.strava.com/activities/65359789

I part two I will let you know how riding up the A11 for 100 miles at 7am in the morning went, and yes it was about as exciting as it sounds, also the training camp in Lowestoft went, and the Vachery Triathlon and my thoughts heading into IMUK which is my season goal.