Races

Good turn out at the track today for the Portsmouth Easter circuits. Myself, Rich, Andy C and Mark representing the North End in the 4th cats, Rich got 3rd place and has moved up to the 3rd cats, I managed a 6th and my first points of the season, Andy came in about 12th ish we think and Mark rode over a safety pin and completely shredded his tyre!! Shame really as he was looking quite strong as well.

Its been a while since my last report with nothing much to tell other than a few bunch finishes in the 3rd/4th cat mixed races up at the Mountbatten.

Today however was the Thorney Island circuits on the MOD base. I arrived at the base and proceeded to get lost on the base and drove around for 20mins trying to find the signing on hut!! My race was off at 10:15 and I signed on at 10:05. A quick change and out with the bike for a 5min warm up was not exactly the best prep I could have had!! The weather was horrible, driving wind and rain made conditions tricky along with the potholed roads strewn with debris but it certainly made it a challenge!!

As we set off one of the Army riders romped away from the group at warp speed leaving me on the front of the bunch to make a decision about closing him down or let him go. I chose the latter thinking that conditions were hard and he would blow up. The group soon settled into a steady rhythm and I noted that the finish straight was slightly uphill and into a headwind so made a mental note to save myself for a tough sprint for the finish. A few riders fell foul of the course and punctured but after advice from the Club Capitano (Cheers Rich!!) I had changed my tyres back to my Gatorskins during the week.

There were 8 laps of the course and to give him credit the army rider stayed away for 6 laps but with 3 to go we organised ourselves in the bunch and started a bit of through and off and closed the gap and caught him with 2 to go. We continued with the chaingang effort after the catch and as we took to the bell lap I realised there were only 5 of us left in the lead goup so I was assured of some more BC points.

As we rounded the final corner we were down to 4 as we hit into the wind and uphill drag. I was sat 3rd wheel as the sprint opened up, the fella in front of me started to fade so I pulled past him and went full gas for the final 40 or so meters. It was me vs the Sotonia CC rider, I was catching him slowly, slowly, and then he seemed to start fading as well so I dug deep one last time and with legs burning, lungs bursting and much handlebar chewing I passed him pretty much on the line and beat him by half a wheel length!! Victory for the PNE!!

Am really chuffed with my ride and my career earnings now stand at a giddy £15 and I have been upgraded to a 3rd category license.

Well done mate, that'll be you walking on the ceiling for a while? Enjoy it and here's to more future success!

Well done James,
You battled through adversity and got your just rewards. This is surely testimony to the benefits of your training effort.

To all who are reading this and aspire to improve then take this as the proof of the pudding. Winter training in not a grind it is consistent. All are welcome!!

I am looking forward to this Saturday and hopefully we can both race together. Andy has his exams today so he should be available for selection as well. I'm not sure about Dr Mark?

Excellent work buddy you are truely inspirational.

Rich.

That's awesome stuff James!!! Well done mate! That's definitely all the hard work paying off!

I also managed to get a result this past week, finishing 8th in the bunch sprint at Dunsfold on Friday night. Not quite enough to get my 3rd Cat, but another 2 points closer!

I'd like to second what Rich say's with regards to coming out and giving it a go. The racing is genuinely good fun and my cycling has really improved this year because of it! If anyone fancies a go, it's definitely worth a try!

My exams are indeed now over for the Summer, so I will definitely be racing Saturday morning, see you all there!

Also, I might pop down the track Wednesday if I can make it as I've not been able to get out all weekend due to the panic revision!

Nice one mate, nearly there, hopefully pick up the rest of your points on saturday. Think I will end up riding the 4ths on sat anyway as my new licence isnt thru yet and I had entered early for the 4th cat race! So if I am I can do all the work for you and deliver you to the line HTC stylee!! By the way, I taught Mark Renshaw everything he knows!!!
Chain gang tonight tho if your about.

Mountbatten stage race today. 3 lap TT in the morning followed by a circuit race in the afternoon.
I ended up riding the 3rd cat race today. I had a good result for me in the TT with a time of 2min14 for the 3 laps which put me in 11th place out of 25 I think and that was on a standard road bike with no aero bars. Tho after finishing had terrible coughing fits from the effort and was somewhat alarmed when I uploaded my stats. Heres the link - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/93189564
The alarming part is my heart rate reading. Are any of you in the medical know? That seems dodgily high to me! If it was a spike in the reading I would put it down to the Garmiin unit but that is fairly steadily above 210bpm!! My resting HR first thing in the morning is usually about 48-50bpm which seems ok to me but the other end is off the scale!!
Anyway onto the race. It was very windy today and the back straight was like a wind tunnel, about 10 mins in I found myself stuck near the back as the group split as we hit into the wind and it was a struggle to regain any ground on the main bunch. Myself and a few others lost a lap and as they came round I tagged back on for the ride. As the race progressed I noticed a number of riders dropping out which spurred me on to keep going as I knew I'd had a good TT. Once into the last 3 laps I kept out of the way as I was a lap down and didnt want to get in the way of those going for the win, so I rolled over the line in what I guess was halfway to 2 thirds down the field, awaiting overall results during the week!
The pace to me felt very high today but was a good learning curve for life in the 3rd cats, must remember to keep up the front to avoid splits in the wind!!
Andy C road the 4ths today and had a good finish in the circuit race finishing 4th and has now picked up enough points for his 3rd cat, well done mate, nice one!!
El Capitano was also racing but pulled out the race with dodgy lungs I think, didnt see him at the finish, hope alls good Rich?
All in all a good day, looking forward to the next one, anyone else up for a bash at it then? C'mon, you know you want to!!

Hi Mate,
Sorry i didn’t get to see you at the end. I guess it just wasn’t to be my day!
After suffering from the same coughing fits (sprinters lung) as you i was to suffer further coughing fits during the first couple of laps of the race. This i can ascribe to bad planning and not training specific for the event. Yet another lesson learnt! I will talk it through with you on Wednesday.

I chased down the breakaway from the main bunch and after pulling the entire field up with me i thought it was time to sit in and recover. That was where i had the issue. I didn’t recover as well as i expected and felt that i couldn’t compete.

At that point it was a tossup between stay on and make things worse (although gain the training) or bail out and fight another day. The deciding factor was that i had my diving medical today and as i had to complete peak flow and vitelograph recording i thought it was best if i give my stretched lungs time to recover.

It was the best decision, as i now have a clean bill of health from the doc and actually my preliminary results were better today than they were 20 years ago. So the racing and training is without doubt winding back the clock on my health and is cast iron proof that the training we are doing is benefiting health and fitness. It’s time to look towards the racing in August and September and finish the season with a flourish.

Well done Andy, that’s the objective complete that we had set before we started the winter training program. All of us up a category and gaining experience ready for next year. I have a good feeling for the winter and although it sounds odd, as we are not yet into full summer, i can’t wait for the winter miles once more and an even better base in the bag!

See you both Wednesday for the CG. Mark’s putting in an appearance as well.

Rich.