Hillingdon National B E/1/2/3, 11 Jul 2021
On Saturday I challenged myself and decided to race in the Women’s E1/2/3 National B at Hillingdon. I have raced against some of the women in my race before and we’ve had some close sprints together, so I had to watch for any moves they may make. There were 3 other women that were in the Cat 1 or Elite category so my aim was to stay with them for as long as I could.
The race started off at a fast pace but no one was dropped. There was an attack but this didn’t stick. Normally at Hillingdon no one gets to break away from the bunch as the peloton always brings them back- it’s too flat for anyone to get away. For the whole race there were a lot of attacks so I stuck in the middle of the bunch to get sheltered as it was quite windy as well. Although, on one occasion I did go off the front and pulled the bunch along with me to bring back a rider that did an attack. The last 4 laps were difficult as the attacks were more frequent and the pace was quite high. Each time there was an attack, I felt that I had ran out of gears and was spinning too much but wasn’t going anywhere. I was also in a dangerous position, at the back of the bunch, but I still had 3 laps to go to improve my position.
It came to the last lap and my position was improved. There was an attack with still over half a lap to go which broke the bunch in half. Luckily I was able to get into the front half and my aim was to just hang on, get to front and give it everything in the last 300m. As we came round the last bend (350m to go), I was third from the front which I was happy with and I felt like I had a chance of getting a podium position. Sadly after 100 metres of sprinting I just didn’t have the legs to carry on to a podium spot and most of the bunch went flying past me in the last 200 metres. I finished 11th which I was happy with as I was the only Cat 3 and the only junior in this race, with some more points towards my Cat 2. Plus some of these women were top class riders in Britain’s top UCI teams too!
Amy Harvey
