The last of the three 'twilight' races for the year, this was my second foray into road racing in Canberra. A shortish course, only 27 km, but with two significant climbing sections. The first section was a long, fast decent into valley of the Murrubidgee River and a few break-away attempts were made, though all were reeled back in rather quickly. After crossing the river, there was a short sharp climb up towards the ACT/NSW border where the turn around point was. I was about halfway along the peleton at the beginning of the climb and saw this as an opportunity to move up a bit. A group of four riders, myself included, made it to the turn around with a bit of lead over the rest of the field.
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| Oh yeah... some topo action. Please note how Lake Burley Griffin looks like an angry octopus about to devour parliment. |
After the turn around, I could see a massive storm front moving in our direction. There was quite a bit of lightning - I was wondering if it would turn into a wet race. The decent back to to river went fine but somewhere along the line we lost the fourth rider. The climb started out of the valley and my legs were already screaming at me. About a km or two into the climb, the other two riders started to pull away. I caught up two or three times, but they finally broke me after a little while. They stayed in sight, but slowly kept pulling away. Someone started to come up behind me and finally made contact. I jumped on his wheel for a while and then started taking turns, thinking we could have a crack at catching 1st and 2nd. However, he broke away up a hill after I'd taken a stint at the front. I did manage to catch him but it meant I was knackered when it came down to a sprint finish for 3rd place. Just missed out on the podium by a wheel length.
I was really happy with the way the race went. I'm glad it didn't rain - apparently it poured at the start/finish line while we were out. We were treated to a spectacular lightning show as we gobbled down post race hotdogs and coke.
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