Never before have I raced this late in a season, but the weather was truly exceptional. I underestimated my body clock halfly set on hibernation mode, already. Additionally I was aching from a silly 70km short (but slow?) hillsride the day before. Final excuse, there were a few plonkers not being able to ride wheel and left gaps, I closed down 3 or 4 in succession when the speed started surging to a mental level, there was that gap I tried to close on lap 7 and I had already been above 96% HR max for considerable time, was gulping the air in (not enough) and started feeling dizzy, but that fucking gap (no swearing) just wouldnt come down, maybe 2 bikelengths, i glimpsed 700w on my powermeter and then simply popped, hoping the guys behind me would close it but when I turned around there was an even bigger gap behind me. That was that. After a lap of getting my brain cells getting some oxygene again I found those 3 TCC riders who still had enough motivation to finish the race. I was really really cooked at the end of the day, still had not recovered by the following wednesday even.
