I left a bit late this morning and thought I’d pick the crew up at the bridge 5km down river as that is where they should’ve been when I passed it. I went on the Chiba side and crossed over the bridge into the Saitama side. No sign of them. 5 minutes passed and one of my team mates was hurrying along towards me as if the main group had already been through. I told him that I didn’t see them at all. We went to the half way mark and waited. 5 minutes later I could see them all on the other side of the river. They had taken the Chiba side today as the grass was too high on the usual route.

We therefore missed hooking up with the fast group who didn’t stop and would have to wait for them when they came flying past on the way back. Today though they’d have to negotiate the traffic lights at Noda bridge where we were waiting. A few minutes after the usual group photo they came steaming along and all of them got held up at the lights. Should I jump on the back or do it the hard way?
Somebody had gotten a puncture so a few stopped to help. 3 guys went flying through in an attempt to escape.  I didn’t want to jump on straight away as that would’ve been a bit rude.After giving them about a 200m start I decided to see if I could catch them myself…or at least try to. There was a strong headwind which I’m hopeless at carving through usually. I concentrated on aerodynamics and intervals. Pushing myself up to a steady high speed (37kph) then slowing down a bit (34kph)to get my heart rate under control. I just kept this up till I was making ground on them. With 4kms to go I passed one of them who had been dropped. I made sure to leave him behind and spurted past in a heavy gear. I had to pace myself now and with 1km to go I managed to get to the back of them. Also wondering if the others following were going to swamp me as well. If the 2 still in front of me were on their toes they should have immediately attacked but instead let me get my breath back. When it was my turn to pull them I put in a short burst and it hurt them. Looking back at the shadows behind my wheel I could see that one guy was still doing a good Cadel impersonation but I managed to hold them off even though I was beat and finish first but they probably thought it wasn’t fair. Were they expecting me to pull them along to the finish line?  Had they known how hard it was for me to catch them I’d sure they’d appreciate the effort. Leaving my heart rate monitor off probably helped as well. Only had my senses to tell me my thresholds not a number on the screen. Those numbers can scare you sometimes.

This is where I started my assault. Was close to a 10km time trial to the finish line. No sign of any suntan there. I’m going to fry in the 8 hour race next week if the sun is out.