Finding my racing legs

Been a while since last blog, had a few interruptions to my year but all in the best interest in helping others, mainly family as my father passed away on the 5th of May in New Zealand. The night before I flew back home I raced at Crystal Palace with the aim of winning for my father, which I managed, in a two up sprint after a race long break away. At that point I was just getting some racing form, but the trip to New Zealand cycling took a back seat to the extent I didn't take my bike with me at all. Spent the time with my family walking, talking and just being together and enjoying the NZ autumn weather, bright sunshine, fresh air and 17 degrees each day. Did manage to borrow a Mountain Bike from Village Cycles to get out for an hour at a time wearing jeans and a t-shirt with trainers on flat pedals.
After 12 days it was time to come back to the UK and start riding once again, which I started by going to work the day after landing at Heathrow, still tired but at least getting my legs turning. Lucky for me that weekend was a long weekend so able to get out for two 2 hour rides which was my limit, during the week I was riding an hour or more after work and hoping to race at Crystal Palace but rained off. That weekend I managed a 4 hour ride in the North Downs area, again felt OK but found it hard going. Tried doing some efforts during the week but struggled to push myself and get going, come the weekend and it was all to little to late as it was the Smithfield Nocturne that I had enjoyed so much the year before but hurt so much this year. Found the pace very fast but still able to work my way up to the front and even had a couple of attempts to bridge to the break away but I was out of top end go, wheezing out of my arse and only had short bursts of power so just wasted alot of energy, and once it started drizzling and got the surface wet I lost my confidence with cornering, just felt out of place the whole race and not comfortable so drifted of the back of the bunch but held there pace until 5 laps to go when I got lapped by the leaders so took it as my cue to pull from the race, legs had just cracked at that point as well.
My hole body was very sore after and glutes, wow haven't had so much pain so must have been using them alot, even got cramp with the muscle up the front of my right shin while driving the 6 miles home, falling apart. 1am was when I went to bed still coughing up bits of lung and contemplating not racing the following day at Brentwood.
Woke to a power cut and the outside alarm ringing very loudly, so that solved that question, will race just to get out and away from our dead house, so arrived at Brentwood by 12 noon, had lunch and then got ready for the Crit at 2.30pm. Still sore legs from the night before and just tired but with hardly any warm up as I couldn't be bothered we started another race, sat in as much as I could, pace very high once again but this time I felt good on the bike so avoided the split in the field to get into the lead group and struggled to hang on. Could corner fine but just lack the punch out of the corners so ended getting dropped and in no mans land between lead group and the bunch, eventually 3 other riders caught me and together we worked hard and caught the lead group again just at the point when Dean Downing attacked for the race winning move, the only person to react was Rob Hayles as the rest of us where knackered.
So that left us chasing the two lone riders and in the end it was a sprint for third that I had nothing for so came in 9th, it's a result in an Elite National race at least but really don't like doing races when under done, but I guess that's racing, you have to deal with what you have got at the time of the race, so we use this weekend as a build up to something bigger and better.
So made it through the week following those two races by doing as little riding as possable except for a two and a half hour spin on thursday which just high lighted how much deep tissue damage I had done, legs very tight, especially quads. As I had the weekend off work I planned on getting some miles in and that's what I did. Took Steve from work out over the North Downs for 4 hours on the Saturday, riding out through Edinbridge, Heaver, Idle hill along Pilgrims Way and up Sundridge Lane and back through Cudlam, Downe and up Corkscrew Hill. Total mileage over 70 miles at 17.4 mp/h.
On Sunday once again met up with Steve at 8am at Roehampton gate Richmond Park and headed for the Surrey Hills on another ideal riding day with the sun up and mild temputure to allow for bare arms to get a tan, added an extra loop to normal ride by heading down Horesham way before coming back to climb Leith Hill, Ranmore Common and Box Hill before heading back towards Hampton Court and home, felt stronger as the ride progressed, was expecting to suffer at some point but had no problems so 102 miles in 5.45 hours at 17.4 mp/h average again.
So the racing legs are there some where so on Tuesday night I took them to Crystal Palace to see if I could unlock them. No is the short answer as I guess all the riding over the weekend has taken the edge away but still we had a race long battle which doesn't happen to often at Palace. Lots of attacking ,chasing and tactics going on, in the end it came down to a 9 man sprint for the line, I got myself boxed in as I followed the wheel in front to close so had to follow as riders came in from the sides so was on the gass then off as we were all aiming for the same piece of ground, closest finish I have been in for a while, either 3rd or 4th, not to worried, just liked the hard racing and all good prep for bigger races which brings me round to the need to enter some soon.
Main training at the moment for me is the Etape du Tour on the 6th of July, but I will be also racing the 25th edition of the Guildford town centre race on the 9th of July, so either flying or dead, find out on the night, hope to see some of you there.