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Thank you for visiting my blog, this is mostly about me and my cycling as you can probably guess from the title, but hopefully it will provide a bit more than just that and be thoroughly entertaining too.

Monday 2 September 2013

Topsy Turvy

I decided on this title for want of a better phrase as these last 2 weeks have been mad in my own cycling specific terms as well as what has been occurring; a new element has been discovered, track was merely the sideshow to the field events for once with Isinbayeva winning the pole vault and then pole vaulting into a mire of ignorance and excuses, and the Syrian Civil War has now seen the introduction of chemical weapons. Not only that there was the Ashes victory, Marquez continuing to grow into the legend that he has been widely tipped to be (just a shame he couldn't dance for the next 10 years with Simoncelli) and it's been 50 years since the 'I Have A Dream' speech. Wow!

Not only that, but we have lost some outstanding cultural and historical heavyweight in Sir David Frost and Seamus Heaney, the former I urge any and everyone to watch the infamous interviews he conducted with Nixon and these can be found readily available on Youtube. As for the latter, I have rather sadly not read many of his literary works, but one of the one's I have read and adore over most others is his translation of Beowulf.

My first 2 races I did after the injury were rubbish and I had to pull out after half an hour due to my hamstring still being quite sore, they were at Locmiquelic and Meslan, both 2/3 races. the Next races were 3 1/2/3 races over 4 days and all part of the same trophy series, though they were the third, fourth and fifth ones of the series. On the first one none of us did as well as hoped as it was very tactical with a small, but good quality field. However the next race there were about 140 racers and I managed to get 8th! A great result and me and George were the perfect foil for each other, I don't really know how I managed it to be honest as I wasn't feeling great during the first hour, but as the race continued I felt better and better, it also helped the course suited me to the ground.

Me driving up the hill at Locmiquelic

Me at Meslan, but I don't know why I'm grinning like a Great White here. Maybe it's because I really do like the taste of latic.

The next race was very hilly and the break went from the gun, however over the next couple of laps we drew the gap back (there were 19 laps for the whole race) however I got stuck behind a couple of big boys on the hill when the front group grew to about 25 riders and sailed away. I tried to get across, but to no avail especially as everyone in the peloton was quite happy to chase me down and follow me everywhere. I therefore began to get quite angry with the peloton and began attacking out sheer frustration as that day I felt really strong, but it just shows you what bike racing is really like; no matter what you can still do well with bad legs and rubbish with bad legs.

Me attacking during the first race of 3

Following that I had the G.P. Plouay Amateurs race on Saturday which was brutal. 15km loops, 10 times, sadly I did 2 in the front group before being properly shelled, I continued doing the rest of the race in a small group till we were pulled out, I did 110km of the race. It was not too bad the circuit, but for the steep gravelly start of the cat.4 climb at the back of the circuit that topped out with 4km to go. That buried a lot of good people.

Now all I have left is a few more races before I head back to Blighty, which I'm looking forward just so that I can sort out what I am going to do this Winter as well as next year. At the moment, with regards to teams next year, there seem to be a couple of options, but nothing is done until it's signed as we all know from transfer deadline day. I will let you all know as soon as anything remotely interesting about my situation changes for this Winter and next year, it's really exciting information that I have, but can not divulge at this time.

I hope everyone is still hanging in there and racing strong as well as having a lovely Summer.