Monday evening saw a late night surprise rally drive to the airport to pick up a particularly tanned Beth before a bus whisked her away to Liverpool for the night. As amazing as this turn of events was, I still had to be up at 7:30 to take kids to school and Dad to the station; I hate morning traffic! "Taxi Tom".
A lazy morning, mario karts (I kicked ass!) and a huge fish & chips pub lunch followed with the plan being for Beth to finally see me at an event on my bike. All was going swimmingly until a call around 5 put a bit of a dampener on the day.
I've always thought cycling was a bit dangerous, especially when wet, but horse riding is even more crazy! You're sitting on a half tonne lump of meat with a mind of its own! How is that safe? Needless to say that accidents do happen; I know few details other than Beth's mum ended up with half a tonne of someone else's erratic horse on top of her leg... now said leg is black (not normal). Beth went off to hospital to see if it was broken (fortunately it's not) and it took a bit of convincing from her for me to continue with my plans to race that evening.
So we went our separate ways which left me with plenty of time to suss out the format at Oulton Park, figure out where to sign on and to make small talk with several people I bumped into from my old school. One "kid" I knew, Sandy, who was helping with the sign on, was actually one of my tutees when I was a Sixth Form Prefect... he now looks like a 30 year old man with more facial hair than I could dream of! That freaked me out a bit to say the least. Strangely enough he'd been to the same hospital that day too because someone at school put a beetle in his ear and it proceeded to walk down to his ear drum so they couldn't get it out. Apparently it was pretty painful. Weirder things have happened, but this was quite unique. I think I'd keep the beetle as a souvenir in his position.
A lazy morning, mario karts (I kicked ass!) and a huge fish & chips pub lunch followed with the plan being for Beth to finally see me at an event on my bike. All was going swimmingly until a call around 5 put a bit of a dampener on the day.
I've always thought cycling was a bit dangerous, especially when wet, but horse riding is even more crazy! You're sitting on a half tonne lump of meat with a mind of its own! How is that safe? Needless to say that accidents do happen; I know few details other than Beth's mum ended up with half a tonne of someone else's erratic horse on top of her leg... now said leg is black (not normal). Beth went off to hospital to see if it was broken (fortunately it's not) and it took a bit of convincing from her for me to continue with my plans to race that evening.
So we went our separate ways which left me with plenty of time to suss out the format at Oulton Park, figure out where to sign on and to make small talk with several people I bumped into from my old school. One "kid" I knew, Sandy, who was helping with the sign on, was actually one of my tutees when I was a Sixth Form Prefect... he now looks like a 30 year old man with more facial hair than I could dream of! That freaked me out a bit to say the least. Strangely enough he'd been to the same hospital that day too because someone at school put a beetle in his ear and it proceeded to walk down to his ear drum so they couldn't get it out. Apparently it was pretty painful. Weirder things have happened, but this was quite unique. I think I'd keep the beetle as a souvenir in his position.
My parents did their best to catch a few photos of me in action, but it's quite tricky to get a non-blurry image when your subject is moving at 50kph at this point on the track. Still, you can pick me out and they do give the impression of speed.
The race was organised through the TLI (The League International) who I suppose are a competitor to British Cycling in terms of cycling event organisation. The entry cost was £10 + £5 day membership to the TLI which was a bit steep in my opinion, but then again, it was a closed circuit race on a decent surface with an ambulance following us, so I can see that there are costs involved.
After 5 mins of rolling around testing brakes and gears I was about to start my warm-up when the heavens opened. Sods law hey? The whole day I'd shirked off riding because of this race at 8pm and now it starts raining 20mins before the start... I hid away for a bit then braved the wet to get in a bit of a warm up and to familiarise myself with the feel of the wet tarmac. Fortunately the rain stopped just as we set off, however the damage was done. The track was sodden and the corners treacherous.
My main downfall for the whole race was losing time in corners, where I just didn't have the confidence to carry the same speed through as some of the guys around me; this lead me to lose position and expend too much energy accelerating out of it.
I know there's a lot of "ifs and buts" regarding the rain and whether I could have held on closer to the front had it been dry conditions, but it wasn't and I didn't so I just have to deal with that. It was really tricky to not get swamped when I was close to the front. If the pace was knocked off, it was easy to end up at the back very quickly, and much more difficult to work my way back up; that's bike racing for you.
The third hospital casualty of the day came as the pack got a bit twitchy jostling for position in the last lap. Just after the first corner on a seemingly innocuous slight downhill straight, two guys went down like a sack of shit in from of me. I couldn't brake in time but managed to find a gap and stay upright even if it did involve a little trip onto the grass. That was my race over though as when I curtailed my off-road experience I was 100m back and there was no chance of catching back on with the pace up so high for the last lap. I know I was in no position to contest for Top 10, but it would have been nice to finish in the pack. Oh well. I saw one of the fallers later in a sling looking worse for wear, so I'll count myself lucky I didn't join him on the deck.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed the race and I've already started looking for more races for when I'm back from the Alps. I thought I was pretty fit, but I felt like one of the weakest riders out of the field of about 80. I've got some serious work to do. Just not sure exactly what is required to be competitive like that?
After 5 mins of rolling around testing brakes and gears I was about to start my warm-up when the heavens opened. Sods law hey? The whole day I'd shirked off riding because of this race at 8pm and now it starts raining 20mins before the start... I hid away for a bit then braved the wet to get in a bit of a warm up and to familiarise myself with the feel of the wet tarmac. Fortunately the rain stopped just as we set off, however the damage was done. The track was sodden and the corners treacherous.
My main downfall for the whole race was losing time in corners, where I just didn't have the confidence to carry the same speed through as some of the guys around me; this lead me to lose position and expend too much energy accelerating out of it.
I know there's a lot of "ifs and buts" regarding the rain and whether I could have held on closer to the front had it been dry conditions, but it wasn't and I didn't so I just have to deal with that. It was really tricky to not get swamped when I was close to the front. If the pace was knocked off, it was easy to end up at the back very quickly, and much more difficult to work my way back up; that's bike racing for you.
The third hospital casualty of the day came as the pack got a bit twitchy jostling for position in the last lap. Just after the first corner on a seemingly innocuous slight downhill straight, two guys went down like a sack of shit in from of me. I couldn't brake in time but managed to find a gap and stay upright even if it did involve a little trip onto the grass. That was my race over though as when I curtailed my off-road experience I was 100m back and there was no chance of catching back on with the pace up so high for the last lap. I know I was in no position to contest for Top 10, but it would have been nice to finish in the pack. Oh well. I saw one of the fallers later in a sling looking worse for wear, so I'll count myself lucky I didn't join him on the deck.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed the race and I've already started looking for more races for when I'm back from the Alps. I thought I was pretty fit, but I felt like one of the weakest riders out of the field of about 80. I've got some serious work to do. Just not sure exactly what is required to be competitive like that?