A weekend of ups and downs for me from a racing persepctive...

Saturday saw me managing 336w for 9:13 up the Taal Monument - giving me my best ever power from 3.5 to 9.5 minutes by about 10w. I am not at all sure where it came from as my fitness is well below par and CTL at a measly 46 - perhaps it was the thought of my team mate Jed, who started 30 secs behind me, catching and passing me (As I knew he would be aiming to do..) Anyway, I was very pleased that I was able to push that hard and pace it fairly well.

The fact that the top times were from 6:35 to 7:05 is absolutely amazing  - I estimate that the winning time of Shan Wilson would have been at a power output approaching 6.5w / kg ... very impressive indeed.

 Now we come to Sunday..

The West Coast Express started with the wind behind - and it started very fast indeed. The first hour was at 46kmh - ironically riding with a tailwind can be very difficult when the speed is high - any mistakes and the bunch disappears very fast.

I was a little out of my comfort zone and having to work to keep in a safe place - which I eventually managed. We then turned into the cross wind towards Atlantis, and the hammer went down. The bunch split into two main groups and I just managed to integrate with the second one. We chased the front bunch and got within about 100m by the blue gum tree section but I had overdone it and after one particularly hard surge, I went out the back with nothing in my legs.

I rode sole for about 45 mins with lots of swearing and cursing, into the solid headwind before a few other stragglers caught me and we went home to lick our wounds.

Bottom line, not quite fit enough and a bit too gung ho in the chase group..