Yorks Coast Clarion Spoco 24. 17th April

Aghhh, not another dreaded time trial?

Huh , isn’t that what this is all about? Well of late, no!!

What it was all about was myself riding an horrendously ‘exit down the bog’ race before analysing the anal analysis followed by an optional selection of 2300 lines of excuses framed on my garage wall.

The week previous to this event I had DNS’d the popular BDCA 25 due to dental issues so had a catch up week of training but at least the Mrs was happy as the Tesco delivery bill only amounted to about £80 instead of £150 due to my second hobby of consuming Band Aid containers of food. I never thought I could really get any lower than my current 62 kg but just 4 days of hardly eating and drinking showed I could with a new record of 59.8kg!!

Morning starts have always been a ball ache for me so knew I was going to need a long warm up for this one.

So , race day and a 10.30am start time so everything was a build up to that.My plan started at 6.15am.

After a small breakfast it was onto the turbo training in a warm fitted out garage and a L2 ride for 40 minutes with a 10 minute warm down then 10 minutes of extreme stretches on the usual suspect areas that seem to hurt in races.

Quick shower, more breakfast and a browse on the tt forum to see who the key board warriors were about to opt for a firing squad this weekend.

Once at the HQ there was the usual attempt of getting in the ‘zone’ and avoiding everyone but again like every other race this failed!

It was known beforehand that pre race favourite, pro triathlete Phil Graves was a DNS so teammate Ali Wareham stepped up to new favourite although I don’t think there would have been a lot in it had Phil started.

A concern for me was that Ali was only 3 minutes behind me on the starting order and knowing how good he is going compared to how bad I’m going lead me to be concerned of being caught in the closing stages. If he did catch me he was at the very least going to get his arse pinched!!

With 35 minutes to go I did another warm up on the road using top gear to somehow shock the muscles into the sense they had already endured 2 hours of L4!

The countdown was gone and I was on my way. I’d purposely screen switched on my Garmin unit to just view current and average speed (something Billy Beldon suggested) instead of looking at power and getting demoralised by the low numbers.

It was a cross headwind out blowing on the left shoulder but after a few miles I was comfy in the 58x14x13 mainly all the way out along the smooth flat initial 10 miles to Driffield.There were a few moments where I had to just back off slightly as I felt my legs were being overloaded with fire. Average speed at this point was about 26.4mph I believe but now it was onto the shoddy surfaced undulating second half.

Feeling better and pushing harder now on the short climbs riding most at L5 (checked afterwards) it was nice to actually catch riders especially after an early season of miserable thoughts.

I must admit to riding this race like I used to which was to push hard on the climbs and ease off over the top and recover before lifting the pace again. Although over geared comfy and strong , it felt more natural than trying to spin and something Bob Tobin and I thought would be worth testing.

The further the race went the better I felt and longed for another lap as I neared the finish. Average speed now nearly 27mph as even coming back it seemed a tad sticky.

Into Dog Kennel Lane TI and a 528w effort towards the finish, the finish that was never coming. Power dropping to high 300s and gasping for air when the chequered flag finally arrived in a time of 51.17 for the 23.1 mile course shortened due to road works.

As expected Ali won but no bum pinching as I was safe from being caught but he still cruised in with a 50.42 despite a delay near the finish.

So still some way to go but a step in the right direction or was it just a fluke?

Checking the power file afterwards it was higher than my last 10 at least.

Still deciding which number excuse to mark down for this one, maybe I’ll leave it blank……

Joel Wainman