Lincoln Grand Prix Sportive

I took part in the Lincoln Grand Prix Sportive for the second year running today which was supposed to be a training exercise with Southwell Triathlon to tackle tomorrow morning......the plan was simple...draft my way round 56 miles, not ride too hard and make sure my legs were in good working order at the end...how could such a plan fail... impossible ????

Well for a start there were roadworks which meant that the course was lengthened by 8 miles to 63 miles - good start !

I met my friends at Registration at 8.30 and it literally took seconds to sign in, receive my freebies and then get the days timing chip -  a far cry from last years meltdown which took the good part of an hour ! At around 9.00 we were ready to head off onto the course in the cold sunshine ! From the off, there was a lot of people getting a bit giddy and as a result I found we were being swept along at a faster pace than I suspected we were going to be riding at. We were however, meeting lots of people and gaining some draft along the way, so not all bad. The first hour came and went very quickly as we made good progress and once past Bardney we found that the inclines didn't cause us too much problems either. I did make the mistake of stopping for a pee break and then having to chase down the pack over the next four miles - this did not help things and I could feel my legs creaking by the time I had finished my effort and got back to the group.

We reached halfway in good time - 1.53 something - and yes, they had the same rocky road as at Rutland and I filled my boots again thank you very muchly ! 

The second half of the race was a lot tougher, due to the work done in the first half, and also because we caught a Wheelers group - this was bad news as I could no longer spend long periods drafting and felt that I should do some work - so do some work I did and put in some good long stretches off the front. This again did not help the old legs, but hey ho, I was enjoying setting the pace and testing the other guys. 

There was just one climb of note at Scampton which I just nailed as fast as I could, and then it was straight into Lincoln for the famous Michaelgate cobbled climb ! Last year, I had to get off and walk the last part of the hill, but not this year, I gave it everything and was loving the applause and cheering from the spectators at the side of the road up the climb and rode it right to the top!

Overall time for the day - 4.06 - not bad for what was to be a training ride when we first set off , and 70th of 261 finishers on the day. Now where did I put that Ibuprofen cream ???