Besides my annual flirt with the tar at the 94.7, I have never done any other road races. This year I decided to try another road race and I am so glad I did. I entered this race as a training ride for my Sani2C preparation i.e time on the saddle at a sustained output.
My group was IL the last 'unseeded' group to do the 103km race and it started a rather late 08:00. Being new to road riding, I was quick to make friends at the start while we waited for our batch to slowly move forward i.e to get some valuable tips on how to do this race etc. The start was extremely fast - for the first 10km I was averaging 40km/h and at the 30km mark I was on 37km/h. I managed to tag onto a few groups of riders which helped a lot. I have never ridden so fast in my life, what a rush.
After the shorter race split at 48km, this is when the rolling drags started slowing me down. It was great riding with a few people along the way, I made a few temporary friends that helped me easily eat up the tar. Mike shared a good tip with me - if you throw water on your legs (from the sachets received at the water points) this takes away cramps and temporary revitalizes them.
At the end I finished in a time of 3h23 with an average speed just over 30km per hour. I was really chuffed with myself as I was aiming for a sub 4 hours. What a fantastic race that was well marshaled and organized.
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| Group IL patiently waiting to be called up to the start |
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| Yours truly at the end of the race after an awesome day on the road bike... |
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