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Having had my arm twisted by Scott to join him in an Olympic Sprint Team at the forthcoming District Championships, I thought it only proper that I should actually get on my track bike before race day.

I had been meaning to do this last weekend, but this was taken up with a lot of house stuff. Finally this morning the final set of shelves went up onto the garage wall and I was able to reward myself with a trip to the track.

I got there in time to get some riding in before one of the impromptu sprint sessions which are filling part of the hole left by not being able to ride the track after dark (due to the cable to the lights being stolen about 6 weeks ago).

I knew that the gear I was riding was too big, but I couldn't be bothered to change it and after rolling on 51x16 for a bit, switched to my race wheel giving 51x15.

I did a couple of practise slight accelerations which was all I had in my legs by way of a "jump". The third one was from almost a standstill to simulate the start of the Olympic sprint.

Then it was time for the sprint competition which started as usual with flying 200m timing. As I was winding up for my time trial I could feel that there was nothing in the legs, a feeling confirmed with the slowest seeding time of the day of 14.1 seconds. After this poor ride, I did change gear to a more manageable 49x15.

Needless to say, I didn't win the first round match-up with the fastest qualifier and though I made a good attempt in the repêchage, wasn't able to salvage any pride so I took my tired body home. Still, it was great to be back riding at the track after all the Saturday morning and Sunday Sprints sessions I have helped run.

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