The fast and the furious: the power of the pack

Witham 200km audax, Sunday 19th.

Training is coming along well, circa 1,000 miles down by mid April is pretty good going. I did the Witham 200km last year and it was such a nice ride that I signed up again this year. There was a really good turnout, over 50 for the 200km ride alone and the same again I would guess for the 150km and 100km rides. Each ride was (basically) a widening concentric circle, following initially the same route and then joining up again for the last 50km or so.

A chilly start with a moderate north easterly wind. Alas the first 100km were into said north-easterly. I managed to tuck into the front of the leading pack, sitting just behind three people from Colchester Rovers http://www.colchester-rovers.org.uk/ who were setting a lovely pace and doing a lot of hard work into the wind, taking the pack along at circa 26km / hr into the headwind, a huge credit to them. Alas after 35km I had to stop to "water the bushes", thinking it would be OK and I would be able to pace myself back up to the pack. Setting off no more than a minute later alas I was then all alone facing the wind myself and even after stepping up the work rate considerably I was catching them very much in the negative sense. 40 minutes later and legs burning I conceded defeat and gave up the chase and was eventually swallowed up by a group of 5 who had fallen off the back of the pack earlier, we then rode as a small group all the way to the 100km lunch stop over in Manningtree, alongside the Thames Estuary.

Now, with the hard work into the wind done and the lead pack now reformed with around 10 of us, everything all got a bit racy - we knew we had a 100km blast all the way home with a steady tailwind and pace was quickly cranked up into the low to mid 30's, just flying along. After 130km we rejoined the tail of the 150km route where the Colchester trio turned into little attack dogs - every now and then they would spy some laggards from the 150km ride in the distance ahead of us and the pace would be cranked bit by bit before one final blast past the poor souls. I've had it happen to me a number of times in the past, it's so demoralizing being "chewed up and spat out the back" by a pack, the pack is gone before you even get a chance to up your pace and hang onto their tailcoats. Without it wishing to be perceived as arrogant it was nice to be on the giving end for a change. It's also testament to the power of the pack and how well the pace was controlled that we'd gained an astonishing 50km of road distance on these other riders - and some of them were in packs themselves - we really were on a flyer. I won't claim any credit whatsoever for it, the Colchester trio just sat there at the front pretty much all day long doing all the hard work, I just sat following their back tyres for most of the time.

By far the fastest 200km I've done and feeling it today - legs are fine but head is all a bit fuzzy, lack of sugars, salts etc.

Outbound 100km, average 26.2km
Return 100km, average 30.2km
Poor souls from the 150km ride we chewed up & spat out: around half of the 50 starters, don't think they were terribly amused...