English
National XC Champs
The long trip up to Innerleithen, Scotland was made on the Friday before the race so that we had a day to recover and practice the course on Saturday and then rest up for the big race Sunday. The weather forecast lived up to its expectations and continuously showered the whole weekend making the course very demanding at the technical sections.
Friday consisted of a long drive and by the time we had set up camp it was time for food and were losing light so I had a 30 minute spin on my turbo trainer to get the blood flowing through my legs after the long journey.
Saturday I had a bit of a lie in had breakfast and then went for two laps practice of the course. The laps were longer than usual being 30 minutes long with a lot of climbing and descending; I crashed twice in practice by making silly mistakes so this knocked my confidence slightly. After hurting my pride practicing the course I went for an hour spin along the road so that my legs were recovered and this also gave me time to mentally prepare for the race Sunday.
Sunday was race day so I was up nice and early for breakfast so it had time to digest before the race. There’s nothing worse than racing on a full stomach and trying not to be sick whilst doing your race effort. My race was in the afternoon and was 5 laps long meaning a 2.5 hour race, this is the longest XC race I would of done all season. My plan was to race at my own pace and just finish the race as I knew there would be a high drop out rate because of the severity of the course.
I was gridded on the second row and got off to a good start but didn’t continue to follow the leaders pace. I settled in to a comfortable rhythm with the intention of picking up the pace on the last couple of laps. The first descent I went a little bit to fast into a section and went over the handle bars but managed to avoid serious injury and was soon back on the bike. By the time I had completed the first 3 laps I had seen numerous riders who have crashed or had mechanical difficulty on the side of the course.
On my last lap I was in 17th place but making sure I had something left in the tank I managed to catch two struggling riders that pushed me into 15th place, which I managed to hold until the finish.
I’m quite happy with the result considering that this is one of my best results I’ve had in an elite XC race. My plan had worked by surviving the race which was an achievement in its self and was even more pleased when I crossed the line to hear that my Wiggle team mate Lee Williams got 3rd place behind the biggest names in the UK!
Ben