The Wednesday evening 9.38

Which will be preceded by the weather report.

Rain, then thundery showers, followed by rain. Maximum: 18°C. We had our 10 days of summer, I think.

Robin and I got soaked as we walked from the office to the carpark, and we had umbrellas! We drove out to the Severn '10' course, which in true English fashion only measures 9.38 miles, or 15.1km in real money. It started in almost the same place as last Sunday's TT so it was a downhill start. After 6km it turned left onto a back road, then left again onto an even narrower road. The last 3km was all uphill.

We were amazed when we got there and the roads were actually dry, and signed on as number 19 and 20. It goes without saying that 10 minutes before we started, it started pissing down and didn't stop. That combined with the mud in the lanes made for an interesting ride.

We warmed up as best we could, but it's bloody hard to do that when it's raining. Robin set off a minute before me and flew away on his Dalkiia TT bike. I didn't see him again until the finish. I got going and couldn't really get into a rhythm for the first bit. It wasn't until I got into the second half that my heart rate went up to 181 and stayed there.

There were no marshals and I didn't know the course, so I almost missed the first turn and I overshot the second turn, which cost me about 15 seconds. Once I got onto the right road it was OK, although I took all of the bends very carefully because of the mud and not knowing how sharp they were. I caught my four minute woman after 12 minutes, and then at the start of the hill I caught my two and three minute men. I was also passed by the guy who started a minute behind me. Unfortunately, he punctured with 2km to go, which cost him the best time I think.

I finished with 22'12, which wasn't bad considering. Robin did a 22'01 - his best time, but was annoyed that he didn't break 22'00. The quickest was 21'14 and we finished fourth and fifth out of about 25. The course record is a fairly ridiculous 19'38.

Splits:

6.8km: 9'20 (inc. overshoot)
12.2km: 17'17
15.1km: 22'12

The ride home in the glorious dark and rain was most enjoyable. Luckily the bike path goes to within 1km of my place.

I'll probably go back and do the last Chippenham 10 next week (hopefully with TT machine!) then do the final Severn 9.38 in two weeks.