Phils Weekend Racing
I have had quite a horrid time racing of late after becoming ill after my 4th at the Yorkshire RR Championships at the beginning of June. I had to take nearly a complete week off training, and in my haste to try and recoup some of the training time lost I put in a quite hard 32h training week to try and prepare myself for the National RR Champs which were held in Hemsley, about 25miles away from where I live. In my bid to do well at the nationals I had decided to do Otley criterium race the Thursday before to get in a last bit of hard riding into my legs, which was perhaps not the best idea in the pouring rain around a quite dangerous circuit. I felt fine during the first few laps but as soon as I got pinned to the back of the group it became insanely hard, and unlike last year, the pace seemed to be on all the time so there was no chance of any recovery, and as a result of this my legs just would not work and I was quite horrifically dropped. In the following couple of days I just tried to rest up and did a minimal amount of training because I was starting to feel really tired but I went into the national with a hope I would finish in one of the main packs.
All the more experienced guys who I ride with had just told me to stay in the peloton and do no work so I could juts get round the 206km. however, I somehow managed to get at the front during the neutralised section and when the race started I got a bit carried away in all the attacking and I found myself alone chasing down a group of about 6 riders 100m in front of me. I was confident I would catch this pack, but 5km down the road I was still 100m off the back and my legs were already cramping up and in agony and I still had 200km to ride, so I decided to sit up and let the main group catch. However, to my amazement there was a second little group just behind me so I managed to sit on them until we caught the break so that there was in total about 20 of us in the lead group. I was quite happy been in this break because there were riders from nearly every team, and even Jeremy Hunt riding for Credit Acricole, but instead of going through and off there was a large amount of attacking with made the racing so hard, and after about 30miles away we were caught by a bunch that was strung out with David Millar riding shotgun at the front at a crazy pace. I managed to somehow get into the group and managed to get round another couple of laps by my legs were not liking the 2h I had spent going all out at the beginning of the race and I was dropped up a climb about 2k past the feed station, still with a bottle in my mouth that I had not had the opportunity to put in my bottle cage.
I was clearly disappointed with how I had been racing and the ‘first or last’ mantra I am now beginning to race with, so I looked to find a race I could do that I had a good chance at winning and where I could prove to myself that I could actually ride a bike and finish a race, so I decided to go along to the Paul Kay Memorial RR and enter on the line. The race was only a 2/3/4th cat affair over 70km but the style of racing at this level is completely different to that of racing in a Premier Calendar. Everybody races for themselves so it is very hard to get away and there is usually loads of attacking, which can be quite fun. The race started off how I expected, loads of attacking and after a lap or so there was one guy up the road with a few riders trying to get away but with no real intent. So, with my new ‘first or last’ style of racing, and not content on staying in the pack and trying to sprint it out at the end, I tried to attack and take someone with me, but no-one would so when they caught me I attacked again. This happened about 4 times until I eventually managed to get away and catch up the guy who was away by himself, who was surprisingly strong to give him credit. We managed to work well together for the 50km we were away and with 1 lap to go had a lead of 1min 30secs, more than enough to win. However, with about 4km to go, the rider who I was with had a crash which left me with a relative easy win, more of a relief than anything. Hopefully my unlucky month of the season (June) is behind me now and I can get on and do some winning!!
Philip Graves
