This weekend was round 3 of the British XC and tough course
with its relentless climbing, a big test for the legs.
We set of on Saturday morning for a bit of course practice; I
was feeling up for this weekend as training has been going really, well with
constant improvements, once we had arrived and set up, I had a quick lunch and
set off shortly afterwards to go round the course. The course starts with a
long climb which took around 8-10 minutes to the top, which was then followed
by a quick decent which had numerous lines some much quicker than others, you
had to really pay attention as you could easily make a mistake which could
leave to an off and that could be race over! Another climb followed at the end
of the first descent, for another few minutes which led into the second descent
and most of the climbing was now completed, with a few more long descents to
take us back down to the bottom.
On the last decent I was carrying a bit too much speed and
lost my front wheel which sent me towards a tree which I just missed,
fortunately I hadn't fallen off to hard but I was a tad sore afterwards, a bit
of Sports tape helped once applied, I went round for another lap at just under
race pace to get a better feel for the course and to sort out my lines.
Photos from British Cycling's photo stream via Andy Whitehouse
I was 25th on the grid out 52 riders, and the
start was manic, I tried to move through quick but it was hard due to the
amount of traffic with riders everywhere, but my early efforts of moving
through I was paying for by the top of the climb where the pace was still very
fast and so I lost of few places.
Over the next few laps I worked hard and moved through, and
on the last lap I was in a group of 3 13th-15th and the
pace really kicked up, with constant attacks from the other two riders as we
all tried to drop each other and with half a lap to go they had around 5-10
seconds on my which was held to the finish, I crossed the line in 15th
my best result to date, I am getting closer each time to a top 10.
I’m very pleased with this result. MY RACE DATA.
Big thanks to Forme Bikes/ NectarFuel/ Forgoodness Shakes/Schwalbe/Prendas
All the sponsors above make a real difference helping me to
reach my goals.
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