I did also have a great time when I was at home seeing lots of friends and family so it was not all bad as one could easily assume given my previous post, it was lovely to have Verity stay for a few days also so my week at homes was very mixed to say the least. Fortunately Tim has continued to improve and hopefully he will be out towards the end of next week.
I am pleased to say that my knee has continued to improve and that in my first race back in France I grabbed fourth, pretty pleased with considering how aggressive I was all race, but I mucked up the sprint and couldn't get myself on the podium. The race was the 2/3/J Saint-Jean de Villenard with about 80 riders there, 18 laps of a 6km circuit, with a real draggy climb on the circuit. I was at the front all day going for the primes and bagging points in the points classification too, this tactic resulted in me getting 110 euros as well as being at the front of proceedings close to danger. The race keeping on splitting and coming back together all day until with about 8 laps to go a big group of 15 riders went up the road with me also in it, then I went for another prime at the end of the 13th lap against another rider, but with no-one else near us two he decided to push on and so I joined him as the break of 15 hadn't been working too well and the second group of riders were never more than 20 seconds away. After a lap out in front together we were joined by four others who had jumped across from the original break of 15 riders and then we just worked well together to maintain our advantage.
With 2 and half laps to go on the main climb, two riders were dropped from our group of six including the bloke who had initially attacked with me to get away as a pair. Unfortunately I for some reason got a bit dizzy and believed this was the last lap we were on, so on the finish ramp I sprinted, but hearing shouts from my fellow breakaway companions, seeing no photographers and then managing to see the board I saw it said we still had one lap to go. This used up quite a bit of energy, but I got 40 euros for winning the prime so not all bad. Anyway after I attacked our group's entente cordiale went awry and everyone began attacking each other, particularly me as they all felt I was the strongest sprinter. The winner eventual got away just before the main climb and held a minor advantage over the rest of us, but the other 2 riders really didn't want to work with me to catch him. Coming into the final bend though I was in the perfect position, at the back of the other two, but I sprinted down the wrong side and got myself blocked, if I had of gone to the right then I might have got on to the podium, what also did not help was the fact that I really was surprised at the other two gentlemen's sprinting abilities who had really been bluffing quite considerably for most of the race.
Nevermind, I've continued to get some decent results some hopeful I can grab a podium soon, to be honest I felt a bit fat and unfit during the race due to not training on knee and having to eat and drink all the produce I bought believing I was going to do the SERRL Stage Race. My knee held up well though and I was in only minor discomfort because of it during and after the race.
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