To get back into race fitness I have been looking at a few road races. I find I get good V02max and AC workouts from them and they don't take that much out of me in the long run, basically, I recover pretty quickly. Last weekend I was doing a double header, Saturday it was the Brendan Carroll Memorial in Stramullen and Sunday both Mel and I would take part in the Bobby Crilly Classic.
The course for Saturday would probably be classed by Irish roadies as hilly, I would probably class it as lumpy. A few 1-2 minute 7% climbs, reasonable roads and no traffic lent itself to an enjoyable race. My plan was to get a great workout in, stay out of trouble, and see if I could get into some moves. Five minutes before our start a huge rain cloud made an unwelcome visit and left the course soaked – ah well, first time racing on the road in the rain this year... For the first few laps of the race our group rode reasonable cohesively to pull back some time on the other groups (there was a handicap). Soon enough we caught them and the attacks and counters began. I stayed out of trouble by always riding around the front, getting shelter when I could but also being happy to put lots of work into the wind (it was training after-all). I got into a few breaks that were eventually caught and missed the one that got away. The last kilometre, as everyone got twitchy towards the front, I simply kept myself safe and finished in the middle of our chase group.
A well run race that I really enjoyed – I'll be back again.
Results and photos can be found here.
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