Friday the 13th.

This Blog is mainly about racing, but sometimes things happen like my journey yesterday to get to a round of the National Criterium series in Blackpool, Race start was at 8pm, So I left London at 11.30 aiming to allow 4-5 hours on the M40, M6 to get to Blackpool with time to spare in an ideal world that would be easy!
All seemed well until the rain came down just before Birmingham, got unto the M5 and then just came to a halt, by 4pm I had got onto the M6, at this point I should have been near Manchester, from then on traffic was stop, start. At this point I took an A road, in fact the A54, of course driving and map reading can not be safely done ,so I went on my inbuilt compass, which quickly meant I had no idea were I was, kept pressing on, which lead me to a big moment on a wet corner, lost the back end on my Citreon Xantia estate, not reknowed for it's handling to start with and having no power to speak off, I had a big moment of opposite lock, kept it on my side of the road which probable pleased the the 4wd coming the other way. Heart stopping, cosidering I wasn't going fast, cheap tyres on wet roads.
Managed to rejoin the motorway further up, traffic was still the same so needing the little boys room I stopped at the next services which was Charnock Richard on the M6, at this point I realised that it was not going to happan as it was 7:15pm at this point and still 55 miles to go.
Really pissed off to get this far and not race, called a few people to vent my frustration, then went and had dinner, well toasted Panini with Italian sausage and Almond Crosiant and a Cappacino for a whopping £9.60, at least it all tasted good.
At this point after 30 minutes rest I was seriously thinking of staying in a hotel, as I was knackered. In the end I could'nt face doing any driving the next day, so headed back up to the next junction in the plan I would come back on the M61 and cut across on the M62 and then join the A1 back down to London(did this the week before,took 4 hours). The moment I saw the stationary traffic on the M61 I kept going round the roundabout back the way I had come to rejoin the M6. 5 hours later I was back at home, rain was mega heavy but traffic kept flowing which was the main thing. So 13 hours after setting off, I was back were I started. What a waste of a day, when I woke up I felt I should stay at home, but I knew that would not go done well with my sponsors, so I kept on trucking, back that up that I cracked another tooth on thursday at work and know my gum is swollen beyound the tooth so cannot chew on that side.
All I can say, the race was wet, the circuit looked crap from what I could make of it on Google Earth, and the fact that lots of riders punctured and there was not the normal lap out you normally get in a criterium to affect a wheel change and not lose a lap. So not bothered in the end.Thats me all spent, cheers