Over the weekend I surprised myself with one of my best ever finishes in a race. It was a 90km road race that started just outside Writtle, then it went around some of the rodings in Essex. The day before the race, I did a course recon with my dad - we did one lap in the car, then I rode 1 lap as part of my pre-race activation ride and to see where I needed to position myself, what lines to take etc. I didn’t realise how big the course was until riding around it (it was 15 miles long!!). I also noticed that it was a little too flat for my liking, and probably too flat for anyone to breakaway so this was likely to end in a bunch sprint.

Fast forward to the next day, race day… I didn’t have any expectations of myself for this race as I didn’t feel that the course was going to play to my strengths. I used this race as a ‘training’ kind of race to prepare for the upcoming Banbury Star road race and National Champs.

I got the front for the neutralised and when the race began it was full of attacks and the pace was crazy. I sat behind a couple of wheels to hide from the headwind. Admittedly I thought I was going to blow up because of how intense it was, but I knew that this pace was not sustainable so I just kept telling myself to keep digging in and stay in the pack. This worked well and eventually the pace was more controlled, even when riders tried to breakaway. We had a prime on our first lap so I positioned myself to the front thinking that the bunch may break up, but strangely it didn’t. Nothing happened much on the rest of this lap, apart from me skidding round the corner as it was raining and I “sent it” a little too much! The second lap had more riders attacking but again, nothing stuck, luckily as I was a little too far towards the back of the peloton for my liking. Some riders did get dropped but luckily not me. It started to rain a little heavier so as we approached THAT corner, again I skidded a little, even thought I slowed down a lot more. In my head, I was relieved that we only had to do that corner one more time, but I knew that I could not mess up that corner on the next lap. I moved up more in the bunch as there was some more attacks going off. We let them ‘hang out to dry’ before bringing them back in. It was obvious that we heading for a bunch sprint. I made sure I was keeping towards the front of the bunch and keeping sheltered.

As we completed our third lap we apparently had a prime which I don’t think most of us were aware of or at least forgot about it. We went around the corner that I dreaded the most, I luckily went around the corner almost perfectly, however, for other riders, this completely ruined their race with a crash which I luckily managed to avoid. One rider that came down was also competing for the best ‘junior’ prize alongside me and another junior who was dropped earlier in the race. Me and the last junior in the peloton are good friends off the bike, but on the bikes we have some great rivalry. I knew that this lap I needed to be at the front all the way. I was positioned brilliantly on the last lap. The pace slowed down a little after the crash so I took that chance to take my final gel, and get some drink down me ready for the finish. We were just riding together as a bunch of around 25 riders and all was going well until the last 300 metres before the finish. A car was coming towards us so we had to keep over, but one rider decided to ride on the wrong side of the road, despite everyone shouting. She then cut across the peloton to get to our side of the road and caused a crash beside me. Luckily I got round just fine, and five riders (including myself) had a little gap in front of everyone else. A few others managed to get back on to the bunch just as the sprint was about to start. The sprint kicked off at around 150 metres to go and it was a slightly downhill. I started off the sprint sitting in 7th position but I managed to overtake a few riders, crossing the line with an unexpected 4th. And bonus that I won prize money for finishing 1st junior too!

I felt both really happy and surprised with how the race went. I didn’t expect to finish top 5 in a road race, especially on a course that I didn’t feel it suited to my strengths! It’s great to see my training has started to pay off really well too!

Amy Harvey

Lee Valley CC Road Race, 15 May 2022

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