RR: Herne Hill - "A grade hurts"

Rolled up to Herne Hill this morning to register and was given the
option to race A or B grade despite winning my last race. Given that my
goal is to be competitive in the age group races and the course is not
too hilly, I elected to move up to A grade. The rain must have scared
people away as there were only 9 starters in A, with only slightly
larger numbers in the other grades. Great! 80km (7 laps) and no where
to hide.

Thankfully I had 2 of my training buddies, Dave and Steve to keep me
company and pass out friendly advice. On the second lap, Steve and 2
others went off the front and enough people didn't care that they got
quite about a 100m break. However, for some reason, Steve was only
sitting on and they were soon caught.

Next lap Dave and a different 2 blokes got a break and again I had no
reason to chase. This is where it started to hurt. I didn't want to
get dropped off the back either, so I had to follow every attack from
the bunch lest I get left behind. I had no idea how fast these guys can
sprint. We would go from 30km/h up the 'hill' to 40km/h (still going
up) in the blink of an eye. I couldn't seem to accelerate fast enough,
so I often found myself with a 10m gap that required maximum effort to
close. This would happen 4-5 times every lap!

Second last lap and the break wasn't going to get caught, but my legs
were giving up. An attack out of the last corner before the bell had my
legs telling me that it was time to just let them go and roll around for
the last lap, but no sooner did I get this message and the attackers sat up.

2nd last corner and we were racing for 4th. (No money, but points in the
road series comp.) Chasing down a solo guy I thought Steve was on my
wheel. He can sprint better than me and I was going to lead him out as
far as I could. Caught the solo dude and looked back to find we had
about 50m on the rest. At this point I was suffering from exhaustion
induced psychosis and kept going We shared turns until the finish
straight where for some reason I did a Cadel Evans and just kept going
at the front, leading out some bloke I didn't know! When he took off
with 200m to go I stood up to sprint, my legs went "Uuh uuh!" and I sat
down again and cruised in for 5th.

Now I'm walking around the house like an old man...

--
BrettS