Then we hit the short Northumberland Avenue climb up to Trafalgar Square and the group was whittled down to 48. We began with 143 riders across all categories, but the first selection happened quickly, with a front group of 58 riders consolidating in less than 3 minutes. So I joined, hoping I’d be able to ride smart and stay with the A’s in front for the duration of the mostly-flat race. This race used two settings I typically don’t see in the races I frequent. The race (part of the EVR Winter Series) was on 2 laps of London’s Greatest London Flat, a course that generally lives up to its name even though that longer, slack climb in the Richmond Park area always feels a bit too suffery: But I was beginning to think that wouldn’t be the case… The Plan I was hopping into this race, hoping the sickness was minor and wouldn’t affect my riding. Generally, I try to pretend I’m not sick anyway, so I wouldn’t have even called myself sick. I wouldn’t have called myself super sick. It was one of those annoying cold/flu bugs where your nose is running just enough, you’re forced to cough just enough, and you’re feeling just tired enough to know you’re sick.
This wasn’t altogether surprising, as I’d been a bit sick for a few days. Typically I can chug along in the Coco group at ~125-130 bpm, but today it was more like 135-140. The shorter warmup wasn’t a big deal, but I did note that it felt harder than usual to produce high-end power, and my heart rate seemed a bit higher than normal.
But I got distracted processing Tiny Race results and ended up with only 15 minutes to warm up. I had chewed two pieces of caffeine gum and applied PR lotion to the legs… my typical race prep. The race began at 9:30am, so I was planning to be on the bike by 9am to spin up the legs with Coco.
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