LRRA Middlemarkers

This was the first event of the year for the Lincolnshire Road Riding Association (LRRA) and one that I had been looking forward to all winter.

Last year we had miserably cold conditions and I managed to post a time of 1.05.27 with an average seen of 22.9mph. This years course however would not be 25 miles as although the same course was used as last year, there were Anglian Water works in the village of Wigsley which meant that the course had to be shortened to 14.6 miles.

A big contributor to times on this course is the wind and whilst last year we had a 10mph Southerly, this year we had a 17mph North Westerly to contend with - more on that later !

The HQ was at Harby Village Hall and I arrived there nice and early -before spending far too long chatting with other Lincoln Wheelers and then realising that I only had half and hour to get ready and get to the start. I was off at 10.07 like last year and after a brief warm-up only just made it to the start line in time !

Before I knew it I was off and heading straight into a huge line of traffic of which I had to tentatively merge. Head down and into the big ring I went, turned a slight bend in the road to find horrible headwind and a really poor road surface :-(   The first 3/4 miles turned into a right old slog and I think my average of 20. something was not a fair reflection of the effort that I was putting in ! We turned left at Newton Crossroads and I thought I would improve, but no, it was a slow slog again until the top of the shallow rise.

Fortunes did improve after that as I found a little benefit from the crosswind and started to enjoy more normal speeds of 24/25 mph. I finally caught my minute man on this stretch and because I had spent so long concentrating on winding in this particular carrot the left hand turn to Besthorpe came quicker than anticipated. I was now on the final stretch and just kept trying to spin my way home and dropping gears to boost things when I saw I was losing speed.

At Wigsley there was a full wind assisted final kilometre and I absolutely nailed it as hard as I could to get under the 37 minute mark with a 36.51 on the day. Ave speed showed 23.6 mph so pleased with that given the conditions today and the headwind sections. Next up is the first Duathlon of the year next Saturday :-)