Even after all the years I have raced, I am still at a loss to know how the weather can be pretty nearly damn perfect all week (well for March that is), and then with the weekend rocking in, gale force winds and rain/showers appear on the radar. Now if you’re anything like me, you have every possible weather forecast website bookmarked - believe me I think I could almost enter Mastermind with ‘Weather Forecast Websites’ as my specialist subject - and waste endless time surfing these hoping to find a race friendly one. Unfortunately this time all sites were unanimous and certainly not race friendly!!
Saturday morning was grey wet and VERY windy, but not to be deterred I motored up the A19 to test out the closed circuit at Marton (Middlesbrough). I found this very much resembled one of the Dutch ‘Wielerbaans’ I used to ride, with a lovely smooth tarmac track and a few swooping corners, but boy was the headwind a killer on the finishing strait. Now I did wonder so many riders were on their rollers warming up.I should have had mine too!! Two laps of the short circuit with one sprint effort is not an ideal warm up for me, which was all the time I could get on the track!! Two riders attacked from the start…forget any chance of going with them with that warm up!….they stayed away, and in hindsight, I should have gone with the third girl who then attacked a few laps later. I didn’t and came in 7th (points apparently) with the usual ‘into reverse gear’ found as soon as the sprint started. But, regardless of the weather, near - zero warm up, I enjoyed it, high priority in my book!
Sunday; first day of summer. Sun? Warmer temperatures? No! Wet (very)!Windy! Cold!! So nothing new there then, and yes I did remember to move the clock forward, always a bonus if you’re on the right time! So across to Lancashire, (should I take my passport??) and Capenwray. Now this has bad memories for me, a race I’ve never finished, always climbed off. Let’s say nothing much changed today, except I did finish, and that was a definite personal victory for me.
The start was a nightmare, a crash in the neutralised zone (not me!!), taken out the wrong way to the start by the lead car, stopped for several minutes on the way to the start while the wind howled and the rain poured, race started straight up the lovely ‘Sunny Bank’ climb, pretty much from cold now, stopped again at the top while the men's race went through, by which time I was losing the will to live!!! Yes I was shelled out on the main climb, and finished towards the back in a group, legs weren’t too happy after yesterdays’ effort, but regardless of the wet and windy weather, and more bike cleaning ahead, it was still a grand day out.
The start was a nightmare, a crash in the neutralised zone (not me!!), taken out the wrong way to the start by the lead car, stopped for several minutes on the way to the start while the wind howled and the rain poured, race started straight up the lovely ‘Sunny Bank’ climb, pretty much from cold now, stopped again at the top while the men's race went through, by which time I was losing the will to live!!! Yes I was shelled out on the main climb, and finished towards the back in a group, legs weren’t too happy after yesterdays’ effort, but regardless of the wet and windy weather, and more bike cleaning ahead, it was still a grand day out.
Sarah x
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