Castle Combe Good Friday Easter Classic, 29 Mar 2024

Matt deB Photography

It's pretty epic to get the chance to ride around a race track so when my team asked if anyone was interested I thought I may as well give it a go! The week before I'd raced at Lee Valley in London in a field of just under 20 riders and made some tactical errors I wanted to avoid repeating: I spent most of the time near the front of the bunch feeling amazing and then in the final lap discovered that everyone behind me had suddenly found their legs again. Needless to say my plan for this one was to sit in the middle of the bunch and then hope to produce some fireworks at the end.

Matt deB Photography

Nothing ever goes to plan though - the bank holiday traffic made my journey an entire hour longer and my warmup reduced to a pathetic 5 minute loop around the car park. The field was bigger (around 40) and the pace was faster because it was a Nat-B category race, and rather than deliberately trying to stay out of the wind I found myself fighting to hang onto the back. I put down some solid power numbers but the slinky effect when the bunch stretched out after corners and attacks got to me after 40 minutes or so. After riding the last few laps with a friendly bunch of stragglers I decided to make the most of racing in a pretty cool setting and go for an utterly pointless but really rather fun sprint. And yes, I was the first finisher after the bunch and no it made zero difference because finish line positions were only recorded for the top 15 riders, but I'm still pleased with being brave enough to go for a big race even if there are plenty of things to improve on!

Lizzie Fox