Jim's Training

 

Training Ride One

Saturday, 3rd January 2009
Cottingham Circuit

 

 

A good turnout for the first of the training session and it went well, dry and sunny, not much wind but, as to be expected, rather cold. Twenty seven riders altogether, the first group of nine were Rob Stones, Alan Whittaker. Paul Hayward, Sarah Tock, Neil Dean, Stephen Carrigan, Les Phillips, John Galbraith and Mick Adams. The next group of eight started 2¼ minutes behind (another half minute perhaps next week) and were Mark Philipson, Dave Hudson, Simon Mason, Phil Eden, Mark Walker, John Brearley, Andy Carroll and Craig Medcalf.

I thought we might have four groups but the remaining ten riders preferred to stay together and started six minutes behind the leading group. They were Steve Guymer, John Ketley, Karl Downes, Mark Ollerenshaw, David Brearley, Nathan Wilson, Rob Busby, Pete Fielding-Smith, Jason Young and Brian Greensmith.

Lap times were

 

	Group One	Group Two	Group Three
Lap One	9:00	8:27	8:10
Lap Two	8:25	7:55	7:02
Lap Three	7:37	7:36	7:01
Lap Four	7:48	7:15	6:37
Lap Five	7:36	6:58	6:50
Lap Six	( 6:57 )	6:57	6:07

The groups worked quite well and according to plan if you look at the lap times, a nice steady first lap and a gradual increase in speed. Rob Stones was well in charge of the first group and kept them well together until they were caught after four laps, it would have been much earlier. Sarah and Alan, not able to manage this pace managed to stay together and got along well. Lap four, for some reason, saw really fast laps and Rob Busby ran out of steam. There were some splits over the last lap but that's to be expected, especially this early in the year, it is best to go in a group that has just a little bit more ability than yourself. I bet Eddy Merckx was in a bit of a predicament to find someone better than him!

Richard is now my right hand man but thanks to everyone else who helped to marshal: Sheila, Terry, a mobile Les and the evergreen Don.