After training for and competing in a 12hr and 24hr this felt a bit odd. The ride out was 40k, the ride back 40k but the race was only 16k – something’s wrong! 🙂

I decided to use the 24hr TT bike rather than the road bike as I couldn’t be bothered with wheel swaps – Iain and Brent from Oz had arrived Sat night so working on bikes wasn’t an option anyway. Also didn’t bother with my S80 front wheel or overshoes. The Willesden skinsuit saw its first use this year though and the Kask ‘sperm hat’ was good to go.

At the start I found the two Richo’s had found something better to do Sunday morning so I had a double gap in front of me. As soon as I hit the road I realised I’d not done up my shoes properly so I quickly tightened the straps and started properly (that’s what all stop/start is at the start, Scherrit). I was trying to hold around 330-350W I guess or at least trying to to wander into 400W+ too often.

I couldn’t believe I was a quarter of the way through already. Flying down the Wendover bypass I regretted still having the 50T big ring on. At the turn-around I spiked the effort trying to get some draft from a truck that had got there before me. It was too far in front though so the effort was somewhat wasted. The grind up here is usually horrible and once again it didn’t disappoint.

Up to RAB and into the trees I couldn’t see properly because my glasses had fogged up and I’d dripped loads of sweat all over them. I had to pull them down. The effort increased here as it was the homeward stretch. Back past the start so almost onto the finish line and I ramp it up a lot. Proper pain time now as I grovel towards the line as fast as possible. Feel the burn! (insert your choice of sporting cliche here).

A few minutes riding down the road to catch my breath and I head to the HQ. Chatted to some of the other riders and eventually looked at the time 23:08. Nice! That’s a PB by almost 2 minutes. I was only 10 seconds down from Pete and give him some stick about pies. Looking at my PT data later on though I’m sure I did a 24:08 and they’ve messed up either the start time or got my number wrong. So, I’m going to keep the 24:08 time (probably the right one given Peter was loads faster than me normally) and it’s still a PB anyway. Next time I’ll tighten my shoes up first and make it into the 23s officially. 🙂

I’ve been looking at buying a car so that next year I’ll be able to drive to different courses instead of always riding out to the West London races. We’ll see how that goes though.