The first 10 laps where utterly horrible, me peaking at 100% HR max and above(!) every lap on top of the hill, despite the speed not being super fast. I was a bit worried what might happen if the pace was increased. Soon into the race Simon went off the front with two others and I kept slowing the pace of the chasing group for him.
This worked until one of his compatriotes decided to drop back to the peloton and the second one punctured. So Simon was about to be brought back, when 2 other riders bridged over to him. The 3 got to about 45 sec when my other Dynamo mate Jeremy decided to get to them. Unfortunately he took a passenger. Again I was controlling the speed of the bunch successfully and soon Jeremy and co had 20 secs. Thats when I felt better than at the beginning and infused a bit of action, eventually pulled away with two passengers who did not want to work. A sharp acceleration on the hill distanced them and with 5 laps to go I steadily extended my lead on those two chasers and got closer and closer to Jeremy and co ahead of me. It was pretty tough on my own due to the wind and quick turn of the head at the bell revealed my chasers behind where out of sight, so I took it a bit easier, until on the downhill on the other side of the course i could see that I got very close to Jeremy and co, by the finish line I had gotten as close as approx 10sec to them. Happy with my performance on the last 5 laps, despite the sheit 6th place, but who cares!