A huge cohort of Viceroys raced around Cambridgeshire for the honour of qualifying to race in France for their country, or just for the fun of a demanding sportive:

Andrea tells her story: After the disaster I had last year of going out way too hard & cracking half way around & having to deal with the horrid headwinds in the second half on my own, my plan for this year was to go at my own pace, treat it as training for Roth and just do the distance safely and keep my knee intact.

We went over the start line in groups but unfortunately even within those groups it all splintered very quickly and found myself only with Nick & Matt for company, so we jumped on some wheels but there were people everywhere so it quickly became Nick & I, and then soon after just I!  So I jumped into what groups I could, but found myself alone for chunks of time until Jamal came past & I jumped in with his group for a bit, but couldn’t keep up & gradually fell off.

This was about mile 25-30 at this stage and queue kicking myself for starting too quickly again & doing exactly what I’d told myself not to do & was already thinking ahead to the headwinds & how horrid it was going to be again, but I’ve learnt that when the negative self-talk starts it probably means my blood sugar is low so got some nutrition down my throat a bit earlier than planned but it did the trick as I felt strong again despite being on my own, but then got on the back of a chain and stuck with it.

Initially I was at the back so it took some work to stay on, especially after corners, but I was feeling stronger so moved up through the group and we caught back up with Jamal who also jumped on.  Was a brilliant group to go through the headwinds with, perfectly paced as I was pushed but not flat out, so the second half was a massively different story to last year!

The group leaders peeled off at the 64 mile aid station but I knew I had enough fluid to last so pushed on with what was left from the group & a few of us stayed together for a while, but towards mile 70 I was still feeling strong so pushed on and caught the backs of a few groups as I went forward & also passed Lisa who was looking strong.  I was feeling great so pushed more & gave it everything the last few miles.

I knew I’d done much better than last year & as I wasn’t too far out from qualifying last year had a quiet hope I might have managed to qualify so decided to stick around to find out.  Unfortunately they changed the way results were released this year and they were extremely slow in doing so.  The male age groups were drip fed one at a time & it wasn’t until after 7pm the first batch of female results were released so it was a long wait for Lyndsay & I but it turned out to be worth it as we both qualified!!  Also chuffed so many others qualified too, and with luck Lisa, Andy & Nick will get roll down places to be able to go to France as well!