It's 7am, Ive hardly had a wink of sleep, can only mean its the morning after a late night race.
After Tro Div Ster, last weekend, I came out of the race with pretty good legs and was just lacking the rolling parcours to use them on.
So keen to get stuck into more racing I was down to ride The Trophee Daniel Lebreton Nocturne on Friday night.
A 7:30pm start meant a day of chilling. I was quite keen to get a short ride in on the morning but was advised by my team mate to be as fresh as possible for the evening's race.
6pm and picked up in the team car by my team mate Gurvan and his girlfriend. Off we set for the 30 min drive to Ploeren. Arriving at an industrial estate, we parked up. Bikes off and headed to sign on.
72 riders down to ride including such names as David Chopin (ex Credit Agricole stagiare) Vincent Ragot (just finished Tour of Brittany) and Warren Barguil (top espoir often picked to race for national team). So to put it bluntly, with Cholet and a number of others also fielding a strong team, this was gonna be a full on race!
So all kitted up and half an hour to go I set off for a warm up around the circuit. 2.5km panflat, one roundabout, 4 corners, lots of wind and basically a tour of the industrial estate. A few laps done, with some sprints to open up, I got on the second row of the line ready for the inevitable fast start. Team had quite a few riders at this one, six in fact and 36 laps for us to do something in.
7:30pm and we were away, 90km of flat, flat out, industrial estate action! First lap, and the anticipated fast start was not happening. The bunch were happy to roll along and even with a Cholet rider (eventual winner) attacking from the gun, there was little urgency within the bunch. One lap done and the race began!
Attacks left right and centre, tonnes of sprinting out of corners, jumping about and riders cornering like 50 pence pieces! A couple of laps in and other than the constant sprinting out of corners I was feeling ok. Following wheels and trying to bide my time to get in the right move.
A few laps later this all seemed to go to pot. Legs suddenly came over heavy and sluggish. Although I was keen to race my legs were refusing to. So unsurprisingly moves began going off the front and I just couldnt react to them. Soon a massive group had gone. Basically race over.
So in a group of 15 or so we continued. Still feeling pretty rough and wondering where my good legs from Tro Div Ster and Tour des Mauges had gone.
To make a long and quite honestly uninteresting, remainder of the race short, I came in in the group sprinting for 30th or so.
With myself and Gurvan the only two finishers from the team it was safe to say it was a pretty rubbish race for us all!
Chopin was his normal awesome self getting in the break, Barguil and Ragot didnt fair much better than me and Cholet ripped it up and won.
So another panflat, sprint fest. A mixture of bad legs, sprinting out of the same roundabout 36 times and a quality field meant unsurprisingly I got a kicking. One to forget.
Only surprising thing was, I was told, there was actually a group behind ours, clearly going even worse!
So race finishing at 9:45pm and arriving home, 11pm. Still wired after the race Ive managed a mere 4 hours sleep.
Plan today is try and recover some sleep for tomorrows race, a light spin on the bike and a have a much needed massage (not had one in a very long time)
Tomorrow, Boucles du Val d'Oust 1/2/3 race at Pleucadeuc. 90km en ligne then 8 laps of a 5.1km circuit. Really looking forward to this one, which on paper looks to at least be rolling if not hilly!!
Lets hope for a better nights sleep, better legs and a race tomorrow that at least has a motorway bridge!
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