On friday night I took the new Focus TT bike out for a 30km time trial to see how fast I can ride it – I am happy to report that apart from a very sore arse and my belly getting in the way of achieving a full aero riding style, that this bike is fast fast fast ! – saving nearly 10 minutes off my time over the same distance on my normal road bike ….

 

I did wonder as I was hammering along those country roads on friday night, wether or not it was sensible as I had the Derby 10k to negotiate on Sunday morning…well…

 

Sunday morning came and this year I was determined not to get sucked into getting there too early as we had to sit in the car for nearly an hour last year killing time playing the Daily Mail lottery – which works by picking which stories you think they’ll cover & then its the first story that fits your pick… I always go for Di, McCanns, Immigration and nearly always win !!

 

We pulled into the car park of the Derby County Football Club with about 25 minutes to go, which is about perfect and enough time to go to the toilet, have a stretch and a jog, and generally prepare. I had a small panic when my ipod seemed to default to an engineers menu, but thankfully, after a small stress, this sorted itself out and I was able to go and line up in my allocated start area. Proudly, this is now the start area labelled 55-60 minutes which means I can line up safe in the knowledge that the fat fairies and waddle for lifers are tucked away far behind me !!!

 

The weather today was warm, unseasonably so, but overcast to my relief which meant that I could dispense of my underlayer, but could keep my cap on. At 9.30 we started moving forward to go, and instead of a starting klaxon or gun, we got the Black Eyed Peas – groovy !!!!!!!!!!

 

I think the first kilometre must have been long as I reached it in just under 6 mins which seemed slower than I felt I was running, however no panic because theres 9km left. In the second kilometre there is an overpass over a train line to negotiate which I remembered from last year as being a particular bugger to climb. No such problems this year and over the other side I let myself bound down it just a little bit. At the 2km point I was making good time which confirmed that they had measured the first marker long. You are then taken into Derby city centre up and down streets for a kilometre or so which is really nice, well supported and there was also a band playing… nice !

 

I took some water on from a cup at the water station at about the 4.5km point which meant that I had learnt a lesson from Lincoln, and I will make sure I drink in each event from now on. I decided to try and keep the good work that I had been doing going til at least the 7km mark as I felt good at 5k (probably because of the water). At 7km I still felt good and as the race moved down towards the riverside, I could see the stadium in the distance and knew I was going to beat an hour again, but by how much. The 9km mark comes up just as you go under a footbridge ( there were people above, and I was thinking ” don’t you dare gob on me” lol) the time on my watch suggested I could now beat my PB of 57.14 set at Lincoln, and it was all I could do to stop myself sprinting the last bit of the race. Eventually though I made my way into the stadium and was cheered along with everyone else around the football pitch and over the finish line to set a new PB of 56.38 !!

 

Obviously I was well happy with that result and celebrated with a medium sized portion of meatballs at IKEA on the way home, and a new spangly cycling kit from Decathlon – what a top, top day !!!!