Lots of Valkyries made it out to the Club Road Champs in glorious sunshine today. It was such a welcome change from what felt like such a long and cold Winter.
The VCC race-bus had a leisurely warm-up ride (of about 20km) out from Stromlo Forest Park to Uriarra Homestead for the start of the race. I was excited about the start of the race, but also a bit nervous so it was great to have the V-max guys there to chat to and take my mind off the race.
More friendly faces when we arrived at Uriarra Homestead. I had a quick chat with Jason Mahoney from Argonaut Cycle Coaching (who wrote the very comprehensive training program that I'm following with the V-max squad) at the start of the race about tactics. I'll be completely honest - I'm new to tactics, so it was great getting some quality advice from someone who is starting to know my strengths and weaknesses quite well. It also helped put the race in context and gave me something to focus on and made me feel a little more in control of my race than I would have otherwise felt.
The pace at the start was reasonable and it felt more like a bunch ride than a race, that is until we hit the first hill. It soon became evident who was feeling strong and which riders I was going to need to watch out for. The bunch stayed pretty well together up the first climb and then the descent down the other side. But it was this descent that ended up separating the group on the return journey. As we were getting towards the top of the climb I realised that I was in a group with 4 guys and that there was a bit of a gap back to 6th. We mobilised when we hit the top of the hill and started pacelining down the other side and all the way along the road back towards Uriarra Crossing to try and maintain / increase our gap.
We turned around just before the descent down into Uriarra Crossing and that's when we realised how windy it actually was out there. One rider and I somehow managed to go clear at this point without trying. He tried to convince me to keep working with him, but I realised we still had over half the race to go and I told him that I thought we should sit up and wait for the rest of our group of 5 (which is what we did). It was tough going back up the false flat into that headwind, and it was clear that quite a few in our group were suffering. We dropped one rider just after we completed one full lap and then were down to a group of 4.
One rider attacked on the hill heading towards Condor Creek, but we decided not to chase him as we knew he'd been suffering into the headwind previously and was unlikely to be able to stay away solo. Sure enough, we reeled him in on the return journey to Uriarra Crossing and it was clear he was in the pain cave. Our group of 4 stayed together for a shortwhile during this section, but then one rider (who was clearly the strongest of our group) attacked and I decided to go with him. I was slow in responding to the attack though as I was 3rd wheel when it happened, so I had to work pretty hard to catch back on again. But then I was on and we were off (or at least, he was off with me on his wheel).
We hit the last turnaround and then back into the headwind. I was definitely feeling that wind this time around, as my legs were pretty fatigued and had been threatening to cramp for quite a few kms by this point. But the advantage of a turnaround is that you get to see how far back the chase group is, and we realised that we'd probably won the race at this point. But we didn't slack off - we kept going and had a bit of fun trying to chase down the end of the grade in front of us.
I was most relieved to see the finish line ahead, when the guy I was with told me we should finish the race off properly, even though we were in different grades. So we kind of went for a sprint. Well, he went for a sprint, and I attempted to sprint but my calves cramped like they never had before and I rolled over the line in serious pain. At least the race was over though so I could stop and have a proper stretch and then a race debrief with Jason and the rest of the V-max guys (who had also had a good race by the sound of it).
It was great watching the end of the race. 3rd and 4th came in about a minute or so after us and it was a really close sprint finish. The rest of the ladies came in a little while later and they all looked like they'd enjoyed themselves and raced well.
We all enjoyed a general catch up and soft drink while we were waiting for the results / presentations. As it was Club Road Champs there were medals on offer, except unfortunately the VCC medals were locked in an evacuation zone in Mitchell after the toxic fire on Friday so we all settled for a hearty handshake instead. And then we hopped back on our bikes and headed back to Stromlo Forest Park, eagerly chatting with each other about how our races had unfolded, how we felt and most importantly what we were going to eat for dinner.
It was a great day all round!
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