I recently moved back home to Plymouth until the Cent Cols Challenge in September. I managed to squeeze myself onto the Okehampton CC Brentor ¾ Road Race on Sunday. I had only ever raced crits in London before so didnt really know what to expect from a road race on Dartmoor. Last time I tried racing in the south west everything went terribly wrong.

When I turned up to the Little town hall in Brentor it was fairly wet and windy. It reminded me of when I used to play Rugby, getting my Dad  to drive me to little miserable hut’s in the middle of no where in the rain. Although it didn’t feel much like a rugby match, as I had seemed to have left my team behind in London. I didn’t recognise anyone at the race and everyone seemed to be at least in a team of four or more. I felt very alone.

On the start line there were just under 80 riders all itching to get going as it was too wet and windy to be standing around. From the moment the Lead car went it was all go, there were constant attacks left right and centre. I tried to be a part of this as much as possible being in a few small breaks with people but always getting chased down. The circuit was fairly rolling with a few larger climbs and three horrible corners totalling just over 5 miles. On the second lap there was a 10 minute torrential downpour which really took its tole and people started dropping off the back. The attacks continued stretching everyone out on the fourth lap. When I could sense everyone was tiring from all the fast pace and the chasing down of riders that  had been flying off the front, I decided to attack halfway up the steepest climb on the course. When I got to the top I turned to see who had followed and if I had made a gap but there was no one near me. I dug deep for that lap and went all out. The two guys on motorbikes gave me a time check every lap after and I managed to get around ten seconds on the main pack each time. I didn’t really think about how I would keep going for 20miles alone until I was in that situation. I kept on looking down at my garmin and making sure I held my average speed of 23.6, I was constantly searching for different ways to make up seconds on each lap and trying to sit in a good rhythm. In my head I was pretty sure I was going to get caught but I kept riding as fast as I could.

I couldn’t quite believe it when I approached the line and looked over my shoulder with no one there. I somehow managed to finish 45 seconds in front of the chase group and 1 minute in front of the main pack. All the suffering I had been through on the previous few laps was all worth it. 

Throughout my childhood my Dad had cheered me on through Swimming, Rugby and Hockey matches all of which I was terrible at. It was great that the first time he had ever seen me in a bike race I managed to get the win. He even bought me a pasty as a winners prize and that’s as good as it gets in the southwest.

• Okehampton CC Brentor Road Race