The countdown to the end of the season has begun. I have 1 training session left tonight, a gentle recovery tomorrow night, rest on Friday, and then on Saturday, the final race of the season - the Tyneside Vagabonds Open 10.
It will be something of a bitter sweet race for me. The course the Vags use is where I first raced. It’s where I made friends (and enemies). It’s where I learned to suffer. It’s were I rode my first ever time trial bike (albeit a crap bike that needed to go back). This will be my first race on the course since leaving the Vags. I may well be building myself up for a fall here, but Saturday is a huge deal for me.
People such as Elaine Dey, Danny Winthorpe, Craig Fenwick, Peter Schultz, Lucy and Annabel Sill, Alan and Andy Holmes, Steve Gilligan, and of course Cath and Lisa have helped me immensely.
Let me get something straight. I’ve nothing against the Vags. In fact, I have a lot of really good friends in the club. I’ll never forget what the club did for me in my first few months. People such as Elaine Dey, Danny Winthorpe, Craig Fenwick, Peter Schultz, Lucy and Annabel Sill, Alan and Andy Holmes, Steve Gilligan, and of course Cath and Lisa have helped me immensely. I still see myself as partly a Vag, as most of my friends are there. I might poke fun at the Vags every once in a while, but truth be known, I’ve got respect and admiration for pretty much everyone in the organisation. Of course in reality, I’m not a Vag at all. Both me and the missus are fully paid up members of Cramlington CC, and we’re also glad to have met so many friendly, supportive people within that club such as Paul Atkinson, Keith Sibbald and Kevin Plant.
It will be nice to see some of my old Vag friends, no doubt. But once I’m off from the starting line, I’m friends with no one. Every single person I can go faster than, Vag or not, will be a bonus and a huge indicator to me of how far I’ve realistically come in a year. You see, so far this year, I’ve only raced flat or flat-ish courses. I’ve never tested myself on the Vags 10. This will demonstrate my true progress. Anything less than a sub 27 will be failure. A low 26 would be good. A sub 26, whilst maybe unachievable, would be success. Sub 24 times are all good and well, but I still don’t know how much better I am than my 28:50 of last year. I’d like to think I am at least 2 minutes quicker than last year at the very least. If I can’t scrape through this final race with a half decent time, the season will have been a failure.
Fingers crossed then. No pressure. Time to HTFU and go for it.
For Kerry, it’s not such a happy time. A mysterious bug that causes her to cough up what looks like the ectoplasm from the movie Ghostbusters and make a noise rather akin to a female sea lion in heat has prematurely ended her season. The recovery period from the crash had obviously left her immune system weakened, and with 2 kids running around it was only a matter of time before she picked up something. I’m pleased to say that she’s on the mend, but cycling will now be on the back burner for some time.
To her credit, she entered this year as a non cyclist. She hauled a mountain bike that weighed the same as an aircraft carrier from one side of the country to another, and began commuting. She got her first road bike, had it stolen, and got another road bike. And another one for commuting on. She put in a 28.22 10 mile time trial, breaking her target of 30 minutes by over a minute and a half. She road Coast and Castles, and destroyed her previous best time in the Northern Rock Cyclone. It’s been a good season for her. And of course, she looks pretty damn fine in lycra.
So there it is. One anti climax for Kerry, and possibly another one in store for me. But that’s cycling, and sport in general I guess.
When Saturday comes…