My First Race Tomorrow Night!

[Sam Kennedy]

Turns out I can buy a TLI license and pay the entry fee on the day, so I will be doing a circuit race tomorrow night. It is about 7-8 miles per lap, with a climb each lap. I'm not sure how many laps I will be doing, but the race is 90 minutes.

It's Australian Pursuit style, so I will see if I can get put on the first group.

I'm getting a little nervous, I wasn't even considering doing it, until I got in touch with the organiser

With road races, when merging from one road to another, is there normally a marshal which would stop traffic? I'm guessing people wont be slowing down to give way during a race...

 

[aka0019]

Hi Sam,

the course is 7 miles per lap, it's the same as the Steels Cycles one i've been doing on a Saturday. I would assume since it's Willy organising it and he also does the Saturday race it will be marshalled at the two main junctions that you go through. The marshalls will stop the traffic.

I done the TLI crit at Newburn last Thursday which was good, i'm going to try and do the Tuesday night soon too once my car is back on the road as can't keep relying on my dad for lifts!

Let me know how you get on tomorrow. Best of luck!

 

[aka0019]

Oh and I forgot to say, it's 4 laps long. At least i'm sure thats what Willy said on Saturday.

 

[Kr4t0z]

Good luck

 

[Brahan]

How did it go?

 

[Sam Kennedy]

The race was supposed to be 5 laps, it got shortened to 4 laps, I only did 2.5 laps.

I went off with the newbie group, we kept the fast group away for maybe 3-4 miles. The pace went up to about 25mph, and I didn't actually find it that hard to keep up.

After the 2nd lap, a group attacked off the front, and the pace really shot up. It was a bit uncomfortable to maintain, but I could keep up. I made a bad decision of staying on the left for a left turn, so the riders on the outside overtook.

I found myself off the back, so I started sprinting to catch back up, but my left calf all of a sudden started cramping, so I relaxed it for a couple of seconds, then tried to get back on the group again, but it cramped up again.

I dropped into the little ring and crawled back to the start line at around 15mph. I was disappointed since I was keeping up fine and really enjoying myself.

I think the cramp was simply because I wasn't used to working at that intensity for that amount of time, and I didn't drink for 2 laps (around 15 miles) since I was scared of wobbling and taking someone's wheel out.

I hope I will do better next week!

 

[Noodley]

Well done Sam, takes a lot of balls to race IMO...

 

[Keith Oates]

Every race is a learning curve Sam, stick with it and enjoy the race feeling and no doubt some better results will follow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!