Mud, Sweat & Gears Round 1, 1 Mar 2020

The first major A race of the season after a winter of consistent training and a few less important races. My carb loading had gone well leading up to the race, as did my pre-race and race fuelling, and I was still able to get 80g of carbs in per hour. I also had a good starting position as I was on the 2nd row of the grid. My strategy was to go steady for the first few laps and then build up the speed and reel in the riders that had gone off to hard, something that I usually do every race and regret. I always go off like a rocket, get in the top dozen riders and then go backwards paying for the enthusiasm towards the end and typically losing half a dozen places. I thought the new strategy would pay dividends or at least give me something to compare my normal race starts to, but as it turned out it felt like I ran out of energy anyway. 

The course was not really one that I excel at with lots of short sharp climbs and loose dry soil technical descents - one of my main weaknesses! I held my own on the climbs but lost time in the descents. Even though I started on the 2nd row I stuck to my plan and rode at my pace, being passed by quite a few people in the first 3 laps before I started picking them off again as they ran out of steam. As the race went on faster riders started passing me, and I was unable to stay with them. I was also starting to get cramp, something I have suffered from in the past in these type of races. On lap 5 I was lapped by the leader resulting in my only doing 6 of the 7 planned laps. I finished strongly, picking off three riders on the last lap and ended in 23rd place, not what I had hoped for but with plenty to analyse. 

Andy Fountain