Racing at Hillingdon in the middle of the week was a bit strange, normally I race there on a weekend. There was a strong line up, so I didn’t have any expectations of any big results. It was also a chance for me to see how well my legs have recovered from the Tour of Wales national. I knew that the race was going to be fast, aggressive, but will all stay together for a bunch sprint. We were set off 1 minute after the men’s race, and we had a slow start. After a few minutes the attacks begun. The other girls are more powerful than me so my aim was to stick with them for as long as I could and get my positioning right for the finish. The race continued to be attacking, and no one was dropped and everyone stayed together. This seemed to be the theme for the whole race. My legs slowly started to feel a bit fatigued in the last 10 minutes, but I knew I’d be fine for the sprint at the end, so I just made sure to keep sheltered.

We had the 2 laps to go sign up and I wasn’t well positioned - I knew I could make up places on the hairpin as I felt confident on there. After the hairpin I was in the middle of the group, we then had the large group of cat 3/4 men behind us. I already knew this was going to cause somewhat chaos. I decided to follow the faster girls’ wheels and watch on the lap board incase this was our finishing lap. When we approach the finish straight (it’s about 300 metres long), I saw the finish flag so I decided to go flat out and so did the other girls. I was sitting in 4th place until we got to around 100 metres before the finish line and they immediately put the flag down and showed us 1 lap to go sign, along with bell. One of the girls took this opportunity to continue riding hard, l was luckily able to follow and had a good position. I also knew how hard and fast this last lap will be so I knew I had to hang on and get my positioning right. Coming round the final bend, 300 metres from the finish, I had a really good position. I was sitting second wheel from the front, which gave me a little confidence boost- occasionally positioning for the sprint doesn’t always go well for me. As soon as we exited the bend it was full gas the whole way, unfortunately the more powerful and stronger girls all overtook me with 50 metres from the finish. However I still managed to squeeze in to the top 10 which I’ll take, given the strong line up.

I’m quite satisfied with that result after doing a national race a couple of days before hand. It was good to see my legs recovered well and I got round on a course that doesn’t suit me :)

Amy Harvey

Hillingdon Crit, 11 Jul 2023

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