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MK Bowl - 4th Cat Race - 18/08/16
in Road Racing
Myself and @davewells raced MK bowl 4th Cat and @JPB7 raced the women's race.
It was my first one and only my 2nd 4th cat race, with the other one being in Lea Valley last December.
Got there at a decent time, but Janet was running late so limited warm-up to a few sighting laps. This was the 3rd race in 3 days after 2 evenings of mid weeks TTs and the legs were feeling sluggish (get my excuses in early).
Got to the line and pushed myself to the second row next to the birthday boy Dave. Seemed to be around 20 guys and equal number of females. I must say the females looked very serious with a number of teams (starley etc) in the group.
From the gun, two guys broke away, which happened at my first race in LV but unlike last time, I decided to get involved and chased them to join them and thought we could work together. We were caught within a lap.
I then sat in the top 3rd/half for the next 25 mins where i was putting out 110% ftp to stay there. It eventually slowed down and the ftp returned to 100%. Dave spent a lot of the time on the front during this time. Eventually, i got bored and nodded to Dave and tried a CCA breakaway but my legs were goosed and i let us down. With my tail between my legs i sat in the pack, and got dropped slightly on the last but one lap, but got back on for the final lap. in a good position until the last hill then i tried to sprint and there was nothing left... i sat up -i wasn't going to waste any more watts on a >10th place finish.
Really enjoyed it - far less technical/nervy than LV and I hope to get out of work early next week for the final race. Maybe I won’t do 2 TTs before the race and save the legs.
Got chatting to a few guys at the end and potentially looking to do a series in Abingdon in Sept.
Gareth
It was my first one and only my 2nd 4th cat race, with the other one being in Lea Valley last December.
Got there at a decent time, but Janet was running late so limited warm-up to a few sighting laps. This was the 3rd race in 3 days after 2 evenings of mid weeks TTs and the legs were feeling sluggish (get my excuses in early).
Got to the line and pushed myself to the second row next to the birthday boy Dave. Seemed to be around 20 guys and equal number of females. I must say the females looked very serious with a number of teams (starley etc) in the group.
From the gun, two guys broke away, which happened at my first race in LV but unlike last time, I decided to get involved and chased them to join them and thought we could work together. We were caught within a lap.
I then sat in the top 3rd/half for the next 25 mins where i was putting out 110% ftp to stay there. It eventually slowed down and the ftp returned to 100%. Dave spent a lot of the time on the front during this time. Eventually, i got bored and nodded to Dave and tried a CCA breakaway but my legs were goosed and i let us down. With my tail between my legs i sat in the pack, and got dropped slightly on the last but one lap, but got back on for the final lap. in a good position until the last hill then i tried to sprint and there was nothing left... i sat up -i wasn't going to waste any more watts on a >10th place finish.
Really enjoyed it - far less technical/nervy than LV and I hope to get out of work early next week for the final race. Maybe I won’t do 2 TTs before the race and save the legs.
Got chatting to a few guys at the end and potentially looking to do a series in Abingdon in Sept.
Gareth
Comments
Great fun, though, can't wait for next week!