Brutal but good

Just back from a brutal road race - the National Paracycling championships being held in Murwillumbah - over same course as used for the Junior U19 men and women earlier in the day.

I am now officially tired and sore. 2nd again (4th overall in combined category race). Hard to combat those skinny kids! But I was close. They got away on the biggest climb on 1st lap of 4 (with 4 climbs each lap the last one is ~1.5km at 7-10%). Knowing there wasn't much point burying myself just to get dropped by them again, I sat up and waited for the leading tandem pair in the blind category who were only 50 m behind me and they towed me round the next three laps. It was hard enough hanging onto the tandem!

We were making ground and on the last lap (in the rain) and had them in sight, and on the penultimate climb, I said "thanks" and decided to make my move. I got to within 30m of them at the base of the final climb but couldn't quite bridge and had to watch them ride away bit by bit, so I probably finished maybe a minute down. Shame, I reckon I'd have done them in the sprint. This is same guy who won the TT by over 2.5 min, so I had a good ride but I sure needed that tandem!

Still, I was giving away 20 years and 20kg on these guys, so all up I'm pretty pleased with that effort.

2 x Silver medals at Nationals is good going less with than a year back on the bike. :D