Quote Originally Posted by Travs View Post
I got caught by this last time at Parliament Hill.

They didn't have numbered pens like usual, so the start was a free for all, and i started further towards the back than i should have been. Spent well over a mile at nowhere near full pace trying to work through.

That said, the cautious start didn't affect me overly as it was my best performance in a national by a long way. Although it undoubtedly cost me time.
I was at Alton Towers the first time it was there with only 3 of us in the pen.
Tom C a 30-31 minute 10k guy, Adi who was about 37 for 10k and me who was usually a minute behind Adi.

I just went for it with Tom. I told him just before the gun that he'd better shift as I'd be in his slipstream.

After lap 1 I could keep picking Adi out a few hundred metres behind me. He just couldn't claw back the lost time at the start.
I gave him regular waves as we passed around the various hairpins

I also won my side-bet with Danbert and particularly enjoyed high-fiving him as a spectator about 100m from the finish line on my way back to the club tent.