The March Hare Classic was my first race of the season, and as it was a National B race, there is always a stacked, quality field. The circuit was really flat and I’ve trained and raced on this circuit since I was 13, so it helped me with my race plan. As it’s a flat course, I knew that this doesn’t suit my strengths as such, but I do enjoy a fast race. Me and my teammate both came into this race with the aim of just ‘getting round’ and tried to read the race throughout and go along with the flow of things, especially as we both aren’t sprinters. We were outnumbered by other established teams like Hutchinson-Brother UK. From experience, I knew that Hutchinson would want to control the race by attacking from start to finish especially as they had 5 riders on the start line.

Our race was 30 laps long, and straight from the gun an attack was made by the National Crit Champ. As expected, there was a counter-attack by the Hutchinson team. For the first 15 minutes this team was keeping everyone on their toes. I felt that my positioning was good in those first 15 minutes, towards the front and not getting boxed in. My legs at this point could feel a little fatigue from the constant attacks, yet they still felt good so far (this doesn’t normally happen to me this early in the season). Despite the race being less attacking at this point, there was a fast pace being set. I took this time to recover and get some drink in me before the attacks started again. With about 20 laps to go, the attacks started to build up again. I wasn’t in the best position in the bunch, but I didn’t stress too much as I knew the attack was unlikely to stick. As I moved up the bunch I noticed there were about 8 riders up the road with a gap. This was a potential threat, as there were 3 riders from Tofauti, 3 from Hutchinson plus another 2 riders. If they worked together, then they could potentially get away. Then they suddenly slowed down and dropped back - panic over.

The remainder of the race was pretty controlled, at a fast pace, but not as many attacks. With 3 laps to go it started to pour down with rain, and the race became quite attacking again. Now my aim was to keep towards the front, and stay upright! It was going well until the last lap where a rider almost caused a crash by attempting to undercut the rider beside me on a slippery corner. Consequently the rider beside me had to weave towards me, causing me to also weave out the way and lose some places. It was quite difficult to move back to where I was originally placed so I just had to risk it and go flat out on the sprint and hope to make up some places. As expected the race did come down to a big bunch sprint and you couldn’t see anything because of the down pour. But I finished in the top 15 which I’m quite pleased with considering the race didn’t suit my strengths. This was indicated my fitness levels, and my legs felt good considering I’ve only just come back from a series of illnesses and and fatigue following on from the illness.

Amy Harvey

March Hare Classic Road Race, 19 Mar 2023

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