Word Masters Pursuit

Early on in the year I told my coach that I really wanted to get the World Masters Pursuit title as it had eluded me while in Manchester and for a variety of reasons I'd not raced it the previous 2 years. It was a gap in my palmares I wanted to plug.

I had sort of forgotten that conversation, but she hadn't so, when about 2 months ago I was struggling to do any training at all and was bleating that maybe I'd not race it , I was totally ignored. Wise coach!

There are so few old ladies still racing track that the beauty of the timed events is that the place on the podium (or not) is only one factor we look at, the other is our time ie we keep an eye on how our times are dropping as we age.

My very best pursuit is 2min 49 point something, but nowadays I'm in the 3 minute zone. I had hoped to set a World Best Time for the pursuit but for some reason, although she raced it in Colorado Springs in August, Marsha Macro's time of 2 min 52.7 seconds wasn't listed as a record. With this in mind and not wanting to claim for a record that was somewhat slower than one that might be in the pipeline (plus all the kerfuffle that goes with it..ie drug testing), and since I'd been fairly close to doing that in the Qual round, I decided to try and catch my oppponent rather than go for steady lapping.

Baaaaaad move! I blasted out of the gate..25 second first lap (same as my best ever first lap)..stewpid stewpid 19s second lap then 20 then 21 then 22 then died, fried and blurred final 4 laps with my coach's husband asking later how on earth had I managed to free wheel on a fixed hub..rude bugger(!). Hey I was riding with legs that wouldn't bend that suddenly weighed >3 times their usual, with lungs and heart protesting and with tunnel vision. I kept going ovally but only from instinct. I was TOAST! Time slower than the qual round, but first across the line.

However mission accomplished and with more races to come this season, time to get into the high 2 min zone again.

Scratch today and tomorrow I enter the twilight zone ie its my 65th birthday!