Stay Silent.

I was racing out near Kyneton today, on a course that I'd only ever been dropped on before this point. It was coming to the last climb and I was still feeling pretty good (probably thanks to this, with the addition of some of these wheels, courtesy of this guy - more on that later). I was starting to think about the sprint - there were two guys off the front, but it was definitely going to be on for third place. I think I even loosened off my brakes a bit. In the hope of covering any moves up the hill I'd gone to the front of the bunch, and was sitting there quite happily, before I started to hear this voice. Now, this was at the end of one hundred ks of racing, and I wasn't thinking real clearly at this point. "That's it," the voice was saying, in a disturbingly calm tone, "keep pushing it. Come on. Come on. Now drop down a gear. Come on. Big ring now, big ring. Out of the saddle now. Out of the saddle now. Come on. Come on. Smack it! Smack it!"

When eventually I blew (no similies this time, perverts) I was relieved to see that the voice belonged to Sean the Man, who took off up the hill without delay. I was also relieved to see that we'd shelled most of the other riders in the bunch. The Man ended up coming home third, taking some money off the organizers and sharing it with me.

There's a dubious moral in here, about how listening to the voices that could possibly be just inside your head leading to wealth and riches. Make of that what you will.