I headed down to Ballarat last weekend to have a crack at the National Road champs. I usually don't manage to fit in a massive amount of road racing, but the calendar was a bit more favourable this year and with so many top professionals riding there each year I was very excited about racing against some of the worlds best on the road. The 160km course at Buninyong involving 16 laps of a 10km course with a climb on each lap, was always going to be a tough day and it was my main goal just to finish (typically not very many do).
The first lap was fairly steady and I tried to work out where the best position was and where I could move forward when I had to. With so 160 in the race, that wasn't always easy. It was such a buzz to look around and see so many guys on the top ProTour teams; there were guys that had won & worn jerseys or won stages in the grand tours, former world champions, Commonwealth games champions, and on and on....
The climb on lap two was a little more hectic when the break got away, but it soon settled down again. Then lap 4 the pace was on again up the climb and I definitely felt my legs...."I wonder how many times I can go up there that fast" I thought to myself. It backed off a little again and there were a few laps there where I wasn't under any massive pressure and I was getting the hang of maintaining a good position, which definitely made my life easier. On lap 11 I started to be in trouble but just managed to drag myself over the climb, but a lap later I lost contact. I was in a small chase group of about 10 guys and we swapped off trying to get back on through the convoy but couldn't pull it off. With such a short lap, it was now a matter of doing what we could to stay in the race. We worked pretty well together and our group soon whittled down to 3 of us as we eventually came through with one lap to go, I think we were the last through, phew! The lap felt like a bit of a victory lap, we still kept the pace on, but we were all relieved to make it. I ended up 45th out of 48 finishers..close.
Overall it was a really good experience. I was amazed by the pace of the race and I definitely learnt a lot. I am keen to do more big road races now and definitely will be going back to Nationals with some higher expectations next year.
