Brass Monkeys - Round 2

I started with the usual, minimal, amount of race preparation and rocked up to the venue with just enough time to collect my race number, drop off bottles in the pit area and line up sufficiently early to ensure I wasn't starting at the back of the 120 strong field. However with 10 minutes to go before the off I realised I had forgotten something. So i dashed up to the pit area to retrieve the car key, dashed back to the car only to find I hadn't brought what I wanted anyway, then dashed back to the pits to replace the car key and finally back to the start area with a minute or two to go. I did manage to squeeze into the starting line up about half way down the field (rather than completely at the back) but being at the edge when the gun went meant yielding to other riders or being forced into a massive ditch. Consequently not the best start in the world. I consoled myself with the fact I was going for a "slow and steady" tactic and got on with working my way up the field gradually. I had great fun on the first lap. The weather was not too bad at this point and the course was fairly dry. The climbs were all comfortably ridable and the single track was good fun. 

Then the weather worsened and the driving rain started to make the course interestingly slippery but my second and third laps were good and I was starting to think that things were going well. Unfortunately for me I started lap 4 just behind the start of the 2 hour race and very quickly hit a massive amount of traffic. Compared to the first round, over taking was much easier as there was significantly less single track but the climbs seemed to stop riders in their tracks. The technical sections which were easily ridable on the first 3 laps became cyclocross practice and I started to really feel the weather, especially on the exposed ridges where the wind just howled. Being blind as a bat I wear contact lenses with clear glasses on top to protect my eyes (as my optician delights in telling me of the risks of corneal ulcers every time i see him). But it was like trying to drive a car with a misted up windscreen, and when I wiped my specs this just smeared mud all over them. It is surprising hard to stay on your bike when you can't see where you are going.

By the end of lap 4 my slow and steady tactic was no longer working. It had become slow and slower. My legs cramped up, my toes were frozen and my mojo had deserted me in search of a bowl of hot tomato soup. By the end of lap 5 I was within inches of calling it a day until my XCracer team mate Rich Jones passed me on rocket fuel with a bright and breezy comment on it only being one more lap. Oh go on then. Final lap, final circuit of pain. Every little rise seemed like a mountain. The killer climb towards to end of the lap looked like Mt Kilimanjaro and might of well been for all my ability to ride up it. My chain seized on a small rise in the single track with about 10 minutes to go and in an attempt to save the bike I jumped off. Only to be blinded by agony as both my legs cramped up and I couldn't get back on my bike. I must have looked like an absolute muppet. I have never been so glad to reach a finish line in my life. i really don't know what happened, I was eating, I was drinking, I'm not ill (well nothing more than the perpetual cold that every parent of small children suffers) and my bike didn't break. I just didn't have the legs. Finishing a couple of light years ahead of me were Iwona Szmyd and an unstoppable Emily Iredale who had a cracking race.

Despite the brutal conditions there were some excellent result in the other categories too. XCracers Rich Jones took 3rd place in the mens 4 hour race behind the svelt new body of Al Fairbairn (he was showing of his 6 pack on Facebook last week) and the ever formidable George Budd.  Roki Read beat Rick Featherstone in the tussle for first place in the mens 2 hour vets race after Paul Hopkins retired a lap early and Ant White beat Marc Chamberlain in the last lap to take the victory in the mens 4 hour vets race. The 2 hour ladies was also a close run thing with Laura Sampson back in her usual form, beating stiff competition from Maxine Filby. 

So next stop Christmas. The shopping is done, the presents are wrapped and the kids are wound up tighter than an over tensioned cleat bolt. Let the mulled wine flow!

All photos courtesy of Marcus Alford http://www.flickr.com/photos/31852911@N07/sets/72157638703230245/