Weights that make you faster

Just kidding.

Been training fairly well in recent weeks, had a spate of 4 day weeks at work which have allowed me to get some more riding in. I’ve certainly put a couple of KG on but seem to be going alright for it, no illness to speak of, and generally its all been quite positive, including the weather. The last few years I’ve generally entered and come 2nd in the FCC Xmas 10 on the Bentley course, naturally this year was no exception, and the man with the sword this time was James Boyman.

Typically this event comes at a time when the booze is in full flow, and sadly this year was no exception, but I gave myself two days off the drink leading up to this (tough when you have client lunches, they don’t understand why you wouldn’t be tucking in…) and felt in generally good shape. Did a bit of a sharpener session on the Weds, I almost fainted as I did it at 7am and it was pretty intense, but the numbers were comparable to when I did a similar session leading into the National 10. I had a feeling that this could be my year…

While it wasn’t a goal as such to win, it was a goal to do a 19 which is usually the mark of a very good ride at this time of year, however, it was 14-15 deg on the day, not really Dec temps, but the wind was strong and it IS December, so even having seen the conditions I felt like 19 was still a good goal though just scraping it wouldn’t likely win it with riders like Boyman and Topham in the startsheet. To be honest, these guys have always been pretty close to me this year, and as James has got into full flow after a lay off he’s gotten pretty strong, Adam is always going to go quickly, and I knew that it was going to be a tough day and I predicted that all 3 of us would do 19’s.

Anyway, I did the usual warmup with Xav also present riding his huge fixed gear (nutter), I started off and the legs felt good, I got to the turn at about 28mph and it felt draggy, I did however have AP at over 380W which was good as I knew I could turn it up on the way back, in hindsight we both think I went out too easy as we didn’t realise my legs would be in quite so good shape at this time of year (though I think I’ve just been getting stronger and stronger on the roadbike in recent times, so did correlate), I did the return at 400w and about 34-35mph, I finished in 19.32 with 390W AP which is almost identical to what I did at the national 10. I packed up the car and saw James fly through the finish and keep going, Xav asked me what he was doing “getting a 20 minute number” was my response, we both knowingly nodded, he looked fast. I got into the HQ to see Adam Topham had done 19.51, I was pleased to turn my 15 second defeat to him into a tidy margin the other way. There was that lurking feeling that Boyman would have done something silly fast, and sure enough, 19.08 was his time. To put that into context, almost nobody has gone under 19.30 on that course, and those times are usually summer when its 10 deg warmer, people are in shape and the wind is not gale force. Sometimes you get annoyed about how close it was, but there was nothing but respect for that, I knew it was coming, but I saw Adam just shaking his head in disbelief. James later told me he had gone full time with a team doing the bigger road races next year and has indeed been doing 20+ hours a week, I’ve been getting myself thrown out of bars for being too pissed, I only have myself to blame for that level of deficit 😀 – but joking aside I was really pleased with my ride for this time of year and I think there is more to come next year, where 400w will hopefully be the ‘normal’ number for these and with Xav’s help in Feb in the velodrome I can get a bit more aero to make it count.

No racing for me for at least another 6 weeks now, so should probably try to keep the training load up and look forward to seeing how I can go. Will do some of the sporting TT’s, early season Nat B’s and a few 2/3 races too with the team, main goals next year I think I outlined elsewhere but I hope I can make another move up the chain, had a crap year on the road this year, so that will be good to get back into and I hope I can push for a decent placing in the Nationals – even though the 10 this year is uphill, so I may have to look at losing some weight, or accepting my fate, as it were.

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