D
Yeah, that was tough. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stay with the front pack this time, but I actually felt better and better as the race progressed.
I would have given you a better fight in the sprint, but I got caught in the "half-speed" thing (if I accelerate to more than 70 kph, it jumps to half speed).
AAAC, you must have missed a slingshot or two, suddenly you were 20 seconds behind.
Didn't miss the slingshots, just didn't have anything to put into them.
Just got back from 3 nights in Barcelona yesterday. Had a bit of a cold before I left so my Prostrate had swollen a bit so I pretty much spent three days in a lovely City with my dear wife keeping one eye out for the Lavabos wherever we went. Everytime I sat down I felt like I needed to go so the whole three days were pretty stressful inwardly but I tried my best to get on with it. Being in Spain on Holiday also meant a lot of strong coffee during the day and wine or cocktails at night. Add to the that a diet of lovely food you don't usually eat and the stress of the Lavabos thing then indegestion set in as well, something I rarely suffer from but can be very similar to angina. Things are begining to settle now I'm back but the profile of this ride reminded me of the one last year when I hade a mild angna attack afterwards so I did a good short velodrome session today beforehand to test my ticker.
Everything seemed to work so I had little fear of competing in the live event.
I got caught out as many did on the start because I was keeping warm at about 30kph when the 10 second countdown started and it took what seemed an age to zero before I could start. By the time I caught you and Bill I was over 160bpm which is my normal working limit for so early in the session.
As expected you guys were descending quicker than me so my plan was always to crest the hills before you and try and draft downhill.
In theory the speeds you both passed me at I should have been sucked into your slipstream but I got no drafting effect at all so you both slowly left me when going downhill all be it I was still working hard.
As I crested the biggest climb and backed off for some recovery I got a stitch again in my right side and had to 'coast' for most of the descent to shake it off, The pattern repeated for each climb there after and once you guys were past me there seemed little I could physically do to stop you pulling away.
I don't know if my time stuck on the start line has been deducted from my session time over the line but I think it has.
All said and done today's run panned out pretty much as I predicted. Perhaps of the next one is down hill I'll set up my Classic again!