16th OVERALL; 11th VET; 1st STANDARD; NATIONAL VTTA CHAMPION
Last race of the season, and in my mind, last race ever. Recently I'd lost the mojo not just in racing but also in training. Although I never skipped on training, and I always gave it my all in races...physically my performances were not that under par if at all, but my mental state seem to impact the final result. This was a perfect example...really was not interested pre race, and just did not quite make a sub 51mins, but probably only about 30 secs from where I would've been expecting (last year I did 50 dead, but hard to compare conditions).
Pre race assumed Chris McNamara would be the main rival on standard, as it turned out he was 5th male...I scraped the win from Andy Grant by 9 seconds, almost certainly made that up in the last 5 miles!
So, the end of the season, and three more National VTTA Championships, a National RTTC age gold medal and the North Mids CTT Champion...but I knew I'd had enough....one of the main issues was retirement and having too much time on my hands, and pining for other interests....for another posting...so today I won, National Champ! Hooray (although drove to London to stay with Gaston, and didn't have one thought about it)...just drank too much!
Finished season at A11 National ranking - not bad for a 63 year old! And fell to A15 after my crash in April...highest ever A7 in 2018 and 2019 (although standards have increased with Covid and youngsters competing in TTs with no road races).
