Sunday morning dawned with bright sunshine and blue skies, such a contrast to the torrential rain of the day before. However the water had already done its worst on the clay claggy soils surrounding Teolo and we were all prepared for another day of mud plugging.
I had a very early start (6th person off) but saw this as an advantage as the ground wouldn’t have chance to get too cut up by the time I approached it.
I was steady through 1, got a good route choice to 2 but then totally fluffed number 3, losing approx 4 mins. I was never lost, just phaffed my way down a complicated path network before getting stuck on what on the map looked like a cross roads but was in fact two tracks with a 20ft overgrown bank between. I slipped and slithered my way down but continued to be very slow until eventually I got the control.
I got out on to a faster track and started to ride slightly better but never seemed to get into the zone reading the map and subsequently was continually stopping. We had some horrible climbs on muddy tracks in the vineyards, and I noticed some riders taking some very long route choice options to avoid them as mud seemed to ball up in no time on wheels frames and shoes.
We finished in Teolo town square but I had not had a good ride, the results confirming this with 53rd position.
Its hard to see where I went wrong other than number 3 as due to overlaps between the days we have not had the maps returned to us yet for a post mortem but splits show I am fairly consistently losing time.
I have decided to give my place in the relay to Ifor who had a much better ride today and instead tomorrow ride in the mass start middle public race and just try and enjoy myself to finish the season on a better note.