[Closed] 'Race' report today with some STWers.

Today was a charity 'timed' ride for my lads pre-school.

All in all there were 55 entries and a load of roadie/mtbers from local riding groups, also as it was on the Swinley MTBers group, plenty of other randoms turned up to play.

I was feeling good, strong and happy, despite waking up in the middle of the night with a snooty nose and an icky throat, I felt I was in the best form possible for this.

I've not been training particularly for this event, but I've been training hard on the legs and the weight so fancied I was going to do about as well as I could.

Mass start, I lined up on the front row, I always feel it's harder coming through a pack rather than leading it. Quick road section and into 'Churn road' which is a pretty tiring climb and I was quite shocked at how few people came past me at this stage, so I was sitting quite happily in 4th place.
Word came into my mind at this stage "Rider cleverer, not harder"... the guy who was along side me was going along at a good pace, so I dropped in behind his wheel and sat there for another 2km, these are trails I know well, so I knew when I could push and when I needed to relax...Into a longish downhill, I know this one well too and know how much speed to carry, pulling away from the riders behind me as the 29er and myself came into our own a bit...
Down into a long flat section into Upton and again sitting on blokeys wheels but pushing fairly hard. Some fella came past us who was cracking on, so I joined him instead, leaving the other fella to fend for himself. 3rd/2nd/1st were about 100m ahead of me and we were 5 miles into the ride, not bad I thought. Managed to get a look behind and whilst there were bikes in sight, it wasn't 100 of them all flying after me, so again I was happy and settled in... Down through the Woods and on the road to Wantage, one of the leading blokes punctured, I asked if he was OK, and cracked on.

Then into a section known as 'Ginge', massive massive hill right back up to the top of the Ridgeway, here the guys ahead of me pulled away, I was now sitting in 6th and another local 'Colin' came past me.. I know his reputation through the locals as being a fast guy, so was happy to try and sit close to him on the climb but pressing the button and asking for more gears it became apparent I needed to lob it down to the granny for this. Stones, rocks, etc, made it a hard trail. After that was a long fairly flat 'through the fields' section... I was powering through this but on the next hill was dropped by Colin and he pulled about 50m on me... there were 2 guys not a million miles behind me too.
Once again we were on familiar trails, so through the Bluebell Forest I got on with it and dropped the guys behind me. It went a little wrong then as I got to the end of this section and was expecting the arrow to be 'right' but it was down back into the forest "Crap, I must have missed a turning thought me"... so back into the forest and ended up meeting 2 lads who informed me "it's deffo this way", I then jumped on their wheels but I'd lost about 3 mins on Colin. SO I was sitting in 8th place by my calculations now and working very very hard.

Long semi-descent now, bit muddy/slippy and I was holding onto the 2 guys in front.... until I crashed... FFF, pretty simple crash, just got it wrong. Only lost 50-60m on them, not the end of the world. Caught one of them back up on the next climb and went past him, but up at Stanmore he hung on my wheel for about the next 2 miles through a really narrow track, almost lobbed it there too with some pedal-strikes, but was OK in the end.... So sitting in 7th place as far as I could gauge. We'd now hit about 18miles or so, just 7 to go, once again I was back on trails I know and down into Beedon, I knew a short steep hill was coming. Looked behind and the young skinny fella had been replaced by some old Santa looking bloke, the sort of fella who rides 2000 miles a month in the Rockies, weighs next to nothing and was 61 years old it later transpired. He sat on my wheel, then I pulled a lead, then he pulled it back, repeat for the next 4-5 miles... it was funny I said to him "are you taking the piss?" but apparently he wasn't, he was trying...

Into the last forest, singletrack, no way past, so again.. ."ride cleverer...." and I eased off a little to catch my breath, there was no way past here, so I could take it a bit easier... Although this did give yung fella a chance to close back up a bit... into the last climb, it's only about 100m in length, grassy and about 15deg or more.... so again, down to the granny, legs burning beyond words and I was struggling... but I knew there was no way past. We crested the top and he came past me on the next dual track.. I just couldn't keep up... his legs had me... but I cracked on, my HR was god knows what but I was trying hard... into a road section that leads to the village, I'd lost 100m, big gear, small ring, power power power down the hill... but TBH he was FLYING on this section too on his HT, although I closed it to about 60m... .then the run into the village, power power... 40m.... into the park, we looped round and I got to about 25m but I ran out of both legs and energy in all honesty, I'd given my lot.

Over the line and get my finish... I was happy...

It later transpired that due to another couple of lads missing a marker I'd finished 6th... of about 55 riders.. To be honest when I saw all the people turning up in the morning, my expectation had dropped from "inside the top 10".... to "i'll be happy with inside the top 20"... Considering I know a fair few of the lads and their pace, I was pretty bloody ecstatic with 6th place.

Looking at the Strava data there's a lot of new section I've not ridden, but I've got things like 7th out of 115, 5th, PR PR, etc, so again it's hard to be unhappy with that...

Sadly, I then had to do a 5 mile 'family' ride, which my wife was feeling a bit poorly for, so just me and my lad. He'd taken a strop over something and we'd decided not to ride, everyone at the other end of the park filed out and he then burst into tears.. He now wanted to do the ride. Jeeez. So we started 3-4 mins after everyone and go back on Churn Road climb, picking people after people off. PAst all of his mates from school and he was flying. We finished the 5 miler in 2nd place.... Got to be happy with that considering the ages and all his schoolfriends around.

I then cracked on with the MAgners and demolished several, before crawling home...

Happy....?

Yup, happy.

I met some new people, had a great time and some banter... I had my ass handed to me by a 61 year old, but I don't care. hahahahaha.