Pretty much sums up how today went.
After yesterday ending the race at Les Forges, knackered, I had to have a miraculous 24hrs recovery.
Compression tighted up and early to bed. To be honest didn't sleep too well and woke early. Made use of morning at least with a bit of Topgear on Iplayer, a clean of the bike and put the washing on before lunching and heading off for the final, of a 3 day block, of racing.
1:30pm and last journey in the team car. Alone again!! Still only 25 minute drive to the other side of Plouay for The Challenge Roi Morvan Series race in a town called Berne.
Arriving and parked up on the finishing straight. Straight it was, flat it wasn't, was on a serious climb.
Normally I would be salivating at this point, as love a good climb. Unfortunately I was worried, very worried as it was safe to say I was going into this race pretty tired already.
This was clearly a lesson in picking your races. Hard for me as I dont know the circuits but in reflection would have saved myself for this one. Instead I had two hard races already in my legs...this was to be interesting!
So a 5 and a bit kilometre lap, a long probably 1-2km climb, windy flat section and fast descent. A small field of 50 or so riders. A good field though. UC Briochine, Leucemie Espoir and AC Lanester as well as a Sojasun rider present to name a few. For the team it was Rene, myself and Laurent.
So lined up, the advertised distance was 17 laps but for some reason it had been cut to 15 and then was told the first lap was neutralised as well! So 14 laps! I wasnt to upset though as the difficultly of the circuit and how I was feeling meant it was a bit of a godsend!
So away we went. I felt ok and sat in the top dozen or so riders. Then attacks began..I wasnt ok.
I was powerless. Absolutely nothing. Legs werent hurting, I wasnt breathing especially hard just felt dazed and weak!
So the inevitable happened and a break got off the front with Rene in it. Although I was feeling pretty terrible I tried all the tricks in the book to survive in the bunch, namely spinning a ridiculously small gear and hiding!
So a few laps later and surprisingly the bunch had split, mainly due to the climb as riders were coming to a near stop on it. I was in a group of a dozen or so with the break of 8 riders up the road. It seemed like the whole VCP Lorient team was in my group and that meant they chased. Soon the gap to the break was a mere 15 seconds and within touching distance, yet everyone was struggling on the difficult circuit and soon the impetus had gone from the chase and the break went out of sight.
I was hoping after an hour I would come round and ride into it a bit. I was wrong. Still last lap and my group had split to pieces. A group went off the front, I found myself with two Lorient riders. We tried a bit of through and off, yet with a couple of kilometres to go the rest of the group I was in came back to us.
Laurent was present, I was just about! So a sprint from my group for 14th. Well a sprint for some, I rolled in. 2 hours and felt terrible throughout.
Winner was a rider by the name of Maxime Cam, from UC Briochine. A class act. French masters champ was 2nd with Mael Nivinou (winner of the race on Saturday) 3rd. Rene had been caught by the remnants of my group and finished 12th. I was a place behind Laurent in around 20thish. Then what was left of the bunch came in a couple of minutes later.
Surprisingly the break never built much of a lead and was only just over a minute up the road at the finish.
Still pretty much a wasted race for me. Perfect circuit for me just unfortunately legs and head weren't present today.
What's next?
REST and RECOVERY
Whether the lack of get up and go is down to me about to be coming down with something, a culmination of 4 weeks pretty full on racing and training or just going through a bad period. Either way an easy week is on the cards. I had one scheduled in anyway so pretty much to plan!
Light hour or so spins, eat well, monitor HR and health and hopefully after a week be ready for the next block of racing and training.
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