Of course, the events of 11th March affected everyone in northern Japan and I could not stand being on my own in the flat with the aftershocks, food shortages and radiation worries so I packed my bike and bags and headed south to Harima, to James family in the countryside.
The week had started well for training rides. Just meet up with Jim for his lunchtime ride, only an hour. But when an hour starts immediately in the hills and ends in the hills, its worth 3 hours of cycling to get to the hills in Tokyo. No traffic, in some places more deer than cars, just long winding roads of the usual Japanese high quality.
These rides were great training, however playing with Louis and Roy, James' 3 & 2 year old boys I picked up a stinking cold which was enough to knock me out on the final training ride on Thursday before the race. Jim was just riding away, I could do nothing but suffer and hope to get back to the flat as soon as possible to warm up in the shower.
So at least I had a good excuse this time. But in general I'm not as race fit as I was this time last year, with no big races and doing more running than cycling in recent months. More excuses ready!
The event had more riders this year, 66 solo riders, with 21 teams entered, not all starting but a healthy number for a race. No warmup lap this year, so we rolled off the start line and like everyone else used the early laps to warmup. A few riders were testing the main bunch at an early stage, but when no one replied they quickly came back to the peloton. Noone wants to do a 130km breakaway on this course! But after 30km, a couple of fast laps were enough to break the group up and I was on the wrong side of the split, basically because I was too slow up the hill, not because I didn't see it coming!
After that, my race was a lonely 70km of picking up a few fast riders off the back of the main group, lapping slow riders and just hoping a fast team member would leave the pit lane and tow me back to the main group.
But this never happened, and instead I was lapped after around 100km. The first rider to lap me flew past, then a few minutes later Jim led a group of 3 past me. I could at least keep up with them on the long descent, but of course when I hit the hill again, their constant speed began to create space between our wheels which was never going to close again. It wasn't for another few minutes that the main group arrived, and at least they provided enough cover for me to sit on and recover for several laps. I was surprised the group was so large, around 20 I suppose, I thought I had overtaken more riders on the road. There were some team riders in there, so these guys must have been lapped as well and were swelling the main pack. The main bunch didn't seem to be too bothered about the breakaway riders at this stage.
Last years winner, known to use as "marathon man" due to the number of snickers bars taped to his top tube in last years event made his trade mark move with 30km to go. I know that even if I was race fit, with no cold, I wouldn't be able to keep up with him when he makes his decisive acceleration up the climb. This time it really did smash the peloton, and riders were split into 2s and 3s, and I ended up riding the final 30km on my own.
Once Jim lapped me a second time, I heard a cry of "I could do with some water" so took the hint and dropped my bike and ran across the road ahead of the hairpin to try to pass my spare bottle to him. Unfortunately this was a bit random, and probably could have caused an accident, so Jim let the bottle go this lap. I had to wait around another lap to carefully pass the spare to him whilst riding up the hill the next lap, with only a few laps to go, and the lone leader had dropped back to form a group of 4 by this stage.
I cycled around a few more laps just to bring my cycle computer to 149km, but quite bored by this stage and my left knee was really hurting as I'm wearing my mtb shoes and this is is the furthest they've ever been. Later I find out I've only done 49 laps, but noone told me I had one more lap to go, or that I shouldnt stop, so I left the track after a good bit of exercise.
Definitely a course for light riders, my other excuse is being 6kg heavier than this time last year, whereas Jim is still 51kg!
A great event, the majority of riders are experienced weekend warriors with a few top amateur athletes at the front. Jim is more than a weekend warrior these days!
