Hmmmmm….. not a good day for stodge.
I had quite an early start but managed to get into Breakfast early and arrived at the event in good time. It was a 7.5km ride to the start and it was very hot but I was nicely hydrated at the start and felt OK, however I’did feel a bit ‘hasseled’ though nothing I could put my finger on at the time.
I started OK taking a safe route to #1 and was planning ahead well and working hard. I made a daft mistake coming out of #3 losing about a minute where I was trying to map memory too much when I didn’t need to (note to self for the future) but I rode the middle section of the first part of the map OK.
There were lots of primary school groups out on some sort of treasure hunt, playing cowboys and Indians. As one of the first riders through I had no choice but to shout ‘up,up,up,up’ and give a friendly smile and a wave, but as I can across more groups the shouts came the other way with lots of cheering from the enthusiastic kids, all quite surreal.
After a motorway underpass the second half of the course was very different, with short legs almost like a sprint, but with a fair bit of climb. I took a wrong track junction on the control after the spectator loop and probably lost another 45 secs but after that rode a clean race, probably losing a little time on two legs where I navigated ultra cautiously so as not to make a mistake.
So why am I not happy, well this was meant to be my best discipline and after a great result at the British Championships was looking for a top 30 but I was 10 mins down on Killian. Looking at the splits without the maps at present it looks as if I was just generally slow on nearly every leg. (-18 on team top trumps). The only thing I can put it down to was I was really hot, stressed and dehydrated last night after a long Team Leaders meeting and lots of hanging around for the opening ceremony which was late. I then unfortunately had to do some work last night for a bid document which meant I was late to bed and probably more stressed. I feel like its an excuse, but I really can’t figure out what else it could be. Killian had a great ride though and 43rd is a great position only 5 mins down.
So I am now fully prepared for tommorrow, less stresed and in a generally better shape. Im going to take a drink to the event centre and not spend the evening working. Lets hope for a better result in the Long and Relay to come.
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