Firstly I forgot to mention in my last post that after Sunday's race I had a meal with my Dad, Sister and Grandparents (Dad's parents) to sort of see me off before I go to France. It was a lovely meal in a local Greek restuarant and a great way to say goodbye, well, to my grandparents at least. This has set the tone as now that I found that I am finally going on Sunday 10th I will be doing the rounds throughout the week and bidding farewell to my rather large family. The dog is counting down the days on his little calendar as he can't wait to have my bed all to himself as well as everyone else because no longer can I be the annoying Son who has to cut-down people's opinions nor the obnoxious Great-grandosn who constantly raids the fridge everytime who comes around, nor the obtuse Grandson who does not answer questions that he feels are stupid and pointless. Oh how they will miss me.
Training has been incredily tough this week for a couple of reasons, firstly because this is the last week of my block before I relax fo a week to prepare myself for France and seocndly beacuse I've got some quite bad saddle sore, don't worry the disaster area has been cordoned off!!! To finish the block off with a flurry and did the 4th round of the Winter Series at Hog Hill, but the 3rd race due to bad weather cancelling the second round. Anyway there were a lot more people who had turned up to this race, numbering about 20 which is a fantastic turnout, again there were not too many team-mates only two sets of two, so everyone had to keep a watchful eye on each other. The wind was incredibly strong on Saturday with it being a block headwind up and over the climb, usually the decisive factor in the race, whoever attacked and went here would have to go incredibly deep and at the right moment to get away. So after 23mins or so that I was I did, I hit the hill perfectly and raced away gaining 10seconds pretty quickly and by the end of the lap, up the hill again I had stretched out my lead to 20seconds. At this point the better guys in the bunch started to get their act together, the bunch really stretched out with lots of little gaps appering when up the third time up the hill I was joined at the top by the eventual who had managed to gap the peloton on the climb and bridge across to me. We were really motoring at this point with the gap extending back out to 20 seconds by the time we reached the top of the hill on the next lap again. However, again the bunch got their act together and chased us really hard, again with them all strung out and little gaps appering. I saw a small group clip off the front the bunch, only a little bit, on the climb beneath so I sat up as I was really suffering at this point and I thought either we were properly caught or some of these guys would be able to help me and the eventual winner stay away. That wasn't to be as the eventual winner attacked again at the top and the bunch seemed quite content on having swallowed just me. At this point Richard da Silva attacked over the top of everyone and I tried to bridge across the 10 second gap to the leader, he couldn't and at this point the bunch got their act together and began chasing the first two down, after a lap and a half we eventually caught Richard and was holding the leader at just 10 seconds in front. However after a couple of laps his lead all of sudden start to extend by 10 seconds a lap as the power really dropped in the bunch. He eventually soloed to a great win having done what I did to everyone last week. The race was still on though with lots of attacks coming and going, but none sticking. At this point I was really paying for the efforts earlier in the race as well as launching some attacks later still so I sat in for the last 7 laps trying to conserve as much as possible. Unfortunately on the last lap the third wheel let the wheel go to the two in front, these two got a little gap a sowed up second and third between, what a stupid mistake. That meant with podium places now out of the window, I couldn't really be bothered to plan to launch my sprint at the right time so off I went right at the foot the hill. I eventually was overtaken by several people and I got ninth overall. This was failing to live up to expectations, especially after last week's win.
By the way the story I just told will be some what in conflict with the media report on British Cycling on this race, so if you just switch for the Palmer bloke they mention as having done the attacks I did with me, then you will the truth. For some reason they confused me with him on these attacks and believe me I did and suffered for them.
Here's the link to photos of my win at Hog Hill the previous week, very muddy and I'm on the later pages http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubbishjumper/sets/72157632621976280/
On Sunday I then met up with Nick Wilkinson, William Pratt and Harry Evans from Aprire Bicycles to top off the block and weekend with a flurry of pain, however it was not quite as good as we planned. Inevitabely on any sort of team rides there will be mechanicals, unfortunately it was me and Harry, fortunately we had been doing a really good ride for quite a while beforehand and inbetween the problems, neither issues were that bad either so all good.
Time I think to rest up and try and cram in as much French as possible and I know I'm moving to France, but I couldn't help be pretend to be Italian yesterday afternoon during the rugby. What a win and a wicked weekend of rugby in general, lovely performance from England too. The Premeir League is providing plenty of goals each week, the Champions League is returning soon and this year's cycling has started off with an absolute bang with yesterday's Tour of Qatar's first stage providing plenty of excitement from the off.
I am going to be racing both on Saturday and Sunday before I go so hopefully I can finish my time in Britian adding to my tally as well as trying to be top of the National Rankings before I leave, I'm fourth at the moment!!! Anyway this week off gives me time to recover from the saddle sore.
I hope you're all well and training is preceding along at a rate of knots, probably post again when I'm in France so on that note https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K1q9Ntcr5g
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