First Road Race of the season
Posted by Nicholas Hops on Monday, October 10, 2011
After spending seven weeks off the bike I had only had 4 real rides to prepare for the Engen Dynamic Cycle Challenge on Sunday, a 99km (shortened to 95) route from Nelsons Creek estate outside Wellington to Riebek Kasteel, Malmesbury and back. It is a fairly flat race comprising of mainly rolling hills and a 250m climb after around 30km. My seeding had been upgraded to H for the road, which I am happy with because I'm slowly progressing up to the A/League groups which I hope to be racing in next year.
Our group set off at a pretty quick speed and the pace making for the first 13km was done solely by me and two other guys, we averaged over 41km/h for this section as it was mainly flat. Due to my current relative lack of fitness this was all the assistance I could give, apart from a little pacing before the climb - which i paid for on the climb by getting dropped by 200m and spending 10 minutes chasing back on. I spent the rest of the race hanging around at the back of our group, which was quite nice because I usually spend a lot of time at the front, but I was very tired and suffering from lack of fitness. It was also 4000 degrees in the shade that day, so thats another excuse I can claim for being a bit of a leech.
The race went quite well from there on out and by the end of the day about 4 of us from the original H group posted times within 1minute of top finishers from the A group which I was quite excited about. I clocked a 2h39m40something which was my quickest race to date at 36km/h. Shows what a quick group can do for you...I must thank those people who pulled me along though as without them I would have been a lot slower!
I am doing the PPA one tonner (153km) this sunday and am quite worried as to how it will turn out for me and my legs! Shoulder is coming along nicely and the exercises I was given are really helping.
Heres to a good week,
Nick
Our group set off at a pretty quick speed and the pace making for the first 13km was done solely by me and two other guys, we averaged over 41km/h for this section as it was mainly flat. Due to my current relative lack of fitness this was all the assistance I could give, apart from a little pacing before the climb - which i paid for on the climb by getting dropped by 200m and spending 10 minutes chasing back on. I spent the rest of the race hanging around at the back of our group, which was quite nice because I usually spend a lot of time at the front, but I was very tired and suffering from lack of fitness. It was also 4000 degrees in the shade that day, so thats another excuse I can claim for being a bit of a leech.
The race went quite well from there on out and by the end of the day about 4 of us from the original H group posted times within 1minute of top finishers from the A group which I was quite excited about. I clocked a 2h39m40something which was my quickest race to date at 36km/h. Shows what a quick group can do for you...I must thank those people who pulled me along though as without them I would have been a lot slower!
I am doing the PPA one tonner (153km) this sunday and am quite worried as to how it will turn out for me and my legs! Shoulder is coming along nicely and the exercises I was given are really helping.
Heres to a good week,
Nick
