58.43 in the National 25 today. I've broken the hour, WOOOOOOHOOOOO!
The course was fairly fast if not completely flat. From talking to a guy on the start, I thought the way back would be harder than it was, so I held a bit back for a big hill that never came. I had current speed and average speed on my computer and at about 3/4 of the way in, I had an average speed of ~41.6kph that hadn't shifted in a while, so I knew I was going to do it. Since my target had explicitly been the hour, it was interesting that I then just plugged away at the same speed rather than raising my game and risking blowing up - and in the end I still had something to give when I crossed the line. With hindsight, I should have switched to distance at that point, to help me manage my efforts over the last part of the course (You may have guessed that I didn't know this course at all, it was the first time I'd clapped eyes on it.)
Hutch won the day with 47.01, beating Alex Dowsett by all of 7 seconds and Matt Bottrill by a good minute and a half. My efforts got me 111th place out of 126 finishers in the guys event - 117 of us came in under the hour. That was a fast race, much as you'd expect! Ryan Mullen won the juniors in a stonking 48.48 and Julia Shaw beat Ciara Horne and Rebecca Slack to win the women in 54.57.
Well, that's one of my 2012 resolutions ticked off already