How is it that the period from November to March can at the same time drag so slowly, yet whistle by so fast?
Once racing has finished in October-ish, and you’ve had a break to recover from racing week in week out for six months, you then start off again on winter training. And at that point, with fitness pretty low, temperatures likewise, and the days getting shorter, the new season seems aeons away; plenty of time to work up new goals, put together a great training plan and get the hours in, en route to being fitter than ever the next year.
Then in January it can still seem a long way on the horizon, as winter seems to stretch ever further ahead of you, and your tolerance for losing the sensation in fingers and toes during four-hour rides on wet, dirty roads starts to diminish. The first few of those rides are tolerable, but they get a bit wearing after a while. I was lucky enough to have the good-weather interlude of heading to Mauritius in December for the Omnicane Southern Tropical Challenge; but still January was a drag.
Suddenly though, the season is upon us! First race proper is the Absa Cape Epic, which is not far away now; but my first actual race of 2013 has been and gone in a blur of lactate burn, rasping breath and a stream of cold air-induced snot… Yes, it was a time trial.
I wanted to get a few race days in before heading to Cape Town; ideally I would have quite liked the forced efforts of a road race, but I wanted to avoid the risks and unpredictability that come from over-eager racers with all the pent-up enthusiasm from winters on the turbo trainer, not to mention the potential for getting cold, wet and possibly ill. The risks were brought home to UK road racers only too harshly this weekend by the horrible news that a rider died after a collision with a car in one of the big early season road races down near Bristol.
Anyway, I’d decided on a couple of time trials. Early season testing in the UK is characterised by ‘sporting’ or ‘hardriders’ courses. I.e. not the usual dual carriageway slog, but more interesting courses with actual corners and even hills in them!
So the Banbury Star CC Hardriders 23-mile event was my 2013 racing debut. I had not entered with any particular expectations of a result, so pressure should have been minimal. But at the same time, this was my first test with a number on – would all that training have worked? Had I done enough? Too much? The wrong things?
What I certainly had done was forget just how painful a time trial can be, especially one that has a proper four-minute hill three quarters of the way through. Slight tailwind on the outward leg, all the time thinking ‘save something for the way home and the hill’, and also thinking that the bottle of wine the night before might not have been the greatest plan… Hey, it tasted good at the time.
Round the turn, back into the slight headwind, over the gentle rollers which seemed a lot less gentle than I remembered them, and then there’s the hill. Sunrising Hill near the Warwickshire / Oxfordshire border; part of the Edgehill escarpment, scene of a famous Civil War battle in the 1640s. It looms at you as you approach it on the plain below. And then it was a case of throw the kitchen sink at it and get to the top gasping for breath, not having left anything out there, to try desperately to recover on the slight downhill run to the finish. Certainly the good workout it was intended to be.
TT gurning. Photo (c) Sebastian Lomas
The winner was a very worthy Tejvan Pettinger of Sri Chinmoy RT, local climbing and time trialling fiend. Behind him was time trialling stalwart Danny Axford, followed by local boy Will Fox for Team Metaltek. I managed fourth, and was relatively pleased to be within two minutes of the leader at the end; on fairly tired legs, a decent answer to those questions about the winter’s training.
Now time for one more early-season test, the East Surrey Hardriders 30 on Sunday, and then it’s time for the real deal – the Absa Cape Epic.
How are everyone else’s season debuts working out?