I had high hopes for this evening's event - recent performances had suggested that my form was picking up under the onslaught of increased training load. Plus the evening's conditions seemed rather promising. However, there seemed to be quite a bit of traffic, which was making many of us at the start quite nervous.
Indeed, I did get slightly held up at the first roundabout, as a chunk of traffic got in the way. From there, things got a bit easier - I tried using somewhat lower gears than usual on the climb up to the dual carriageway section, but found this just slowed me down. Once on the dual carriageway, it seemed rather heavy going (aggravated by a bus passing me rather too close for comfort), but once round the turn, I seemed to be absolutely flying.
I dared hope for a sub-23 minute ride, but was sadly thwarted, finishing in a not so great 23:20.
Results at the NBRC website. Here's the trace:
I had high hopes for this evening's event - recent performances had suggested that my form was picking up under the onslaught of increased training load. Plus the evening's conditions seemed rather promising. However, there seemed to be quite a bit of traffic, which was making many of us at the start quite nervous.
Indeed, I did get slightly held up at the first roundabout, as a chunk of traffic got in the way. From there, things got a bit easier - I tried using somewhat lower gears than usual on the climb up to the dual carriageway section, but found this just slowed me down. Once on the dual carriageway, it seemed rather heavy going (aggravated by a bus passing me rather too close for comfort), but once round the turn, I seemed to be absolutely flying.
I dared hope for a sub-23 minute ride, but was sadly thwarted, finishing in a not so great 23:20.
Results at the NBRC website. Here's the trace:
