Training 3 - Herdade De Pereiro Micro Sprint
Mass start and proper intensity for this one. It was a direct blow-up of the 1:10,000 so was a bit hard to make sense of at times, lots of things felt weird.
Conor took the pace up early, but we were all confused. Graeme figured it out and couldn't find the stake. Me and Conor ran around in circles and eventually saw him punch. Big sprint effort to catch up by 2 and tucked in for 3, reading ahead to 4.
The lads got over the crag and hesitated, I darted left to the feature, but couldn't see the stake until Graeme leaned over to touch it at my feet. All together to 5 and everything made sense until we got to the feature and no stake. Graeme reckoned we were too high and went down. Conor and I followed and stake was there, turns out we were right. I got a slightly better line to 6 and took the lead. Spotted the boulder and kept it. This was in the information as a dangerous one so we did briefly stop to look over the cliff. Stayed in front for 7,8,9 with a little fiddle on 9 looking for the stake. Graeme hesitated and Conor made his move down the hill to 10. I kept it close and didn't let him get a gap on the flat, Graeme closed up then I tried to go up the hill slightly earlier. It was a crag climb though so there was only one line and I was just behind Conor, Graeme went further and his race was over. On the summit Conor looked left, I saw the building and darted right, getting the stake straight away. Had to keep this now. 12 was easy, beside the car, pushing as much as I could through the rocks. Down to 13, again spotted the feature but not the stake straight away. Conor back up to me when I got it and dropped in.
Big effort down and around to 14, ensuring he wouldn't go for the downhill again, I was very happy to see the stake straight off, then a big finish sprint. I had a little gap and was able to hold it.
Great fun that. Tired body worked well enough.