Imperial Winter Series - Race 1 - 3rd Dec 2011

First race of the series, my first race for since June. Safe to say I was pretty excited! Well nervous excitement at least. Since some long hot summer rides around the Olympic Road Race route through Surrey and Box Hill, the only training I've been able to has been 2-4 spin classes a week at the gym. A good workout, but only 45 minutes of actual work at most. But on the plus side, it's so easy to get stuck into with the music and the loud instructors that I felt able to push my limits good and hard. The heart rate monitor, acquired last Christmas but infrequently used, has become my most important training tool. Managing my mental effort against physical pain is one thing, but being able to do it while staring at what my heart thinks of the effort I'm putting in is something else.

Anyway, the training was good, but I had no idea how it would translate into race pace and I certainly didn't know if my bike handling skills would have deserted me since my last big ride in October. The entry list seemed packed, so I know at the very least that I would be able to hang on to the back of the pack if I wasn't in good enough shape. I'd raced at Hillingdon in April during the Easter holidays in a 4th Cat race. I remember zooming around the hairpin bends, but I was relieved to see that we'd be riding the opposite way around to my earlier race.

The race started strongly, quite a few attacks but I'd raced here once before and I'd never seen a breakaway succeed. The field was clearly quite strong and there were a lot of rapid breaks and rapid catch-ups. There were a few moments when the entire field was in a flat-out sprint to catch up, but usually it was always possible to recover in time. I even tried a cheeky attack for myself, just so Sophie could get a good photo of me in front of the whole field, but I was reeled in just as quickly as everyone else was. The big moment in the race was where there was a six-man breakaway combined two riders having a small coming together. The six riders were strong and all the fight seemed to go out of the bunch, ready to fight for seventh place.

The final sprint was pretty good. Had to come from a decent way back having got boxed in on the inside. I found myself flying up once I'd broken free of the box, but I went behind the wrong rider and had to slow down again to get round. 11th was a decent result all in all, and the best thing was that all the spin classes seem to have got me into pretty decent shape! Bring on round 2.