A trip inside the M25 to the first Alder Valley Boys event of the season, some changeable weather conditions, cloudy one second, sunny the next and once again, fairly strong winds. Robbie racing for AFD in the B stream 1500m hoping to improve on his previous outings so far this season. Improvement wasn’t to be though, with the A & B stream merged in to a single race, and with an exceptional line up, including James Daly, Chey Kemp and Ollie Percival a very fast race was expected, but once again at the first bend Robbie is sat out in front setting the pace, despite not wanting to and with his tactical plan to sit behind the leaders shattered, it wasn’t until way past the half way point that the others started to apply pressure, with Chey Kemp (Reading) going past, followed by Alex Rodrigues (Camberley) and Ollie Percival (AFD) and finally putting some pressure on the front, a battle of will ensued and saw both Robbie and Ollie trying to push past Alex, only to find themselves drifting wider, with Robbie breaking away on the finishing straight and Alex slowly falling back. The chase was on, the little battle of wills had allowed Chey to pull 10 meters in front and Robbie put a concerted effort in to close the gap and was very successful, kicking hard at the bell, but with 200m to go his steam ran out, Chey was still 5 meters in front and now Ollie and James Daly were closing in on Robbie, and were right on his back as they hit the finishing straight. A finishing straight that with flagging legs, saw Robbie drop back from 2nd to 5th, pipped by the second Reading runner in the last 10 meters to knock him down in to 2nd place for the B stream race, and 5th place overall.
Still a good run, tactics didn’t work out well, but lessons were learnt and there is still more in the tank, faster times to come.
Robbie pushing the race from the front.