Hurrah, the race results are up. I finished 59th out of 73 riders, which I count as pretty good for my first race. 🙂
I think I’ve figured out how to read the timings. The race start wasn’t at the same place as the finish line. From the start we did maybe 3/4 of a lap before reaching the line. I think the “Lap 0” time corresponds to crossing the finish line for the first time, ie. after ~10mins of cycling. My HRM said I was cycling for 1h15m so that tallies up with the timing sheet. It also tallies up with my memory of doing the first 2 laps quickly and then the remaining laps rather more slowly.
The fast guys are almost twice as fast as me. Ouch! Even if I’d done all my laps at the pace of my best lap, that’d only move me up the rankings by five places. If I could muster a 10% speed increase (something I’ve achieved before) then I’d perhaps finish ten places higher in 49th. But it’s all lower-order bit twiddling!