The Evening Tom Won His First Race

I spent Wednesday evening sat on a bank next to the Llandow circuit, watching Tom cycle past us every couple of minutes or so. We had driven out there to watch him race and, despite still not knowing that much about racing (Meryn had to ask how long the race was as we had no idea - it was just like watching him race in Varsity all over again), all three of us had a great time.

Since we could only make Tom out when he was cycling past us, we kept ourselves entertained by taking a lot of selfies and making each other laugh (although this fell mainly to McPake - I'm yet to meet up with him and not come away with a stomach aching from laughing so much). Each time Tom came past us, Meryn would shout out encouragement (I would if I found my voice in time) and we'd discuss his place in the group and what we thought it meant. Generally, we had absolutely no idea but we probably thought we did at the time.

The most exciting part was definitely on the last lap, when McPake pointed to the other side of the track asking "Is that Tom?" We looked to see Tom start breaking away from the big group of cyclists, taking the lead. We were too excited to stay sat down and by the time they had all made it around the bend to the stretch of the circuit in front of us, all three of us were stood up almost on the track cheering him on. Tom kept his lead and he won the race!

I kind of want to write that all in capitals to at least try and convey how excited we all were. The last picture is Meryn's reaction after Tom crossed the finish line (and punched the air in celebration) and I think it's my favourite photo from the whole evening. We were all cheering and laughing and dancing and all of us were so proud of him for winning. I'm so glad that we were there to see him win his first race!

It was such a good evening (made even better by the fact that Meryn was staying over so I had her company for an extra day), I can't wait for the next one!