Birthday weekend

Thank you to everyone who made my 23rd special with the cards, messages and gifts, it was lovely and unfortunately this year though I had to settle, for once, not to race on my birthday, but do an easy cycle instead as I was meant to be competing in three races on the bounce over the weekend and Monday. Unfortunately there was a mix-up with transport arrangements so I just did Saturday, a 1/2/3 race and Monday, a 2/3 race.

Saturday's race was part of a big series, the majority of which I would not be doing, but quite a few decent riders and teams were and as it was the fourth in the series, many teams had some jerseys and places to protect or go for. Similarly to Bannalec it made for a very tactical race, but the difference being that this was a higher standard race, on a vastly different course, with less people. Only 60 started, in very heavy rain and the course was very fast and rolling with lots of high hedges and little corners all the way round the circuit thus making it difficult to see even 10 seconds up the road. 22 laps of 5.5km were to be completed with a 800m 5% hill just after the finish the really noteworthy feature of the course.

The race gradually got whittled down to about 35 people and I was feeling great, but I did too much work in the middle laps that really put pay to my chances of a top 10 as when George attacked the last time up the hill and got across the small gap with 5 others to a group of 6, I was not really able to follow the move. I ended just getting back in contact with 300m to go to the finish, but obviously being positioned so far back in this group and with 3 further away, I finished 19th. Not bad, but certainly should have been better.

Monday was a 2/3 at Berne, part of the Roi Morvan series and it was a hilly course where it rained heavily before and during the first part of the race. The course was essential up and down the same hill 17 times making 95km. Me, George and Hamish cycled out to it, before and after, giving me a grand total of 155km for the day. Anyway, back to the race, due to this being the halfway point during the series, again this race was, like Saturday, very tactical. I did the best probably out of the bigger blokes coming 13th, 30 seconds down on the winner, but I did far too much work in the first 2 laps of the race. About 70 started, only 30 finished.

I'm just pleased that my right knee is really improving now and coping with the increase in training recently as well as performing much better in the races and dealing with the efforts up these climbs admirably. I'm just hoping that this continues as it will be by a very small margin if I happen to miss out on my first category license for racing here in France and I would be absolutely gutted. It's a representation of your ability and would demonstrate some tangible evidence that this year really has been worth doing, obviously there are other, more existential benefits gleaned from my 8 months here, but I'm first and foremost here to cycle and get results, fundamentally to win, saying how much I've improved my tactical awareness may not cut it really.