Soggy Bottom Round 2 - My First Race of 2013

I always approach Newnham Parks winter XC series with a touch of nostalgia, Martyn Salt's Soggy bottom series is what got me and I'm sure many other riders in the Southwest into racing. So it's always great to revisit these racing roots. My first race (as an adult) was here about 5 years ago where I finished 16th in Sport. Since then the soggy bottoms have seen me work up the ranks gaining my first podium finishes and wins here. With Sunday's race being the first race of 2013 I was keen to test my legs out for this season and see how much work had to be done to my base fitness... with a 3rd place finish after not racing for a good couple of months it would appear not much work is left to do! So how did it unfold: 

With the cold snap loosening its already weak hold on the South West the once frozen ground turned back to its usual soft state, combined with a heavy night of rain and the AM race turning up the ground it was clear mud was on the menu today. A quick practice lap of the course proved to show a classic some might say slightly bland Soggy Bottom course but considering the weather, the amount of riders and the fact there's been a lot of forestry work in Newnham Park of late I think Martyn did the best he could under the circumstances. The only frustrating section being the long field drag... but a small part of me actually liked it. Check my Garmin Dump at the bottom for course rout. It was nice to be in a race scenario again and seeing the usual faces of SouthFork, XC Racer's Phil Morris and the Juice Lubes lot along with my soon to be new teammates of Brendon and Dexter (more on this to come in the next week or so). 

I'd finished my warm up/practice lap with about 15min to spare which meant I could replace my stupid bottle cage which would just not release my bottle! Thanks Steve Long for the lone of your rather amazing cage! With a bottle cage which worked off I rolled to the start line. Our race had pretty much the whole of Southfork racing opting to race Expert instead of their age categories and two riders from Juice Lubes so for once there was more than 5 riders to contend against! Pete Dawe of Southfork had elected to use a single speed bike (I always thought he was that way inclined tbh) which initially I scoffed at but then realised in fact he's probably onto something considering how gloopy the mud was! I also noticed that despite the large category I was infact the only Elite in the race so technically I'd already won! 

With the usual pre race brief (5 laps) the race was started (by a whistle), from the off my rather wide (725mm) Raceface Turbine bars proved to be an effective defence against overtakes as Harry Smith decided to plough into me which caused us both to ease off and let a fair amount of other riders zip past, with the start going right into the cliff climb my legs just weren't kicking in (nothing new there) watching Dexter Hurlock and James Porter just ride away into the sunset, along with Pete Dawe, Rich Long and Harry Smith... finally my legs kicked back in come the summit where I slipped past Harry Smith and Rich Long before entering the Bombholes which were more tricky than usual thanks to the gloop, into cottage run where Rich Long zipped past me (even though I'm Elite I really do suck at descending sometimes!), watching Rich trying to overtake Dawe then bail quite spectacularly was both entertaining and useful as I retook him! We finally hit the singletrack by the River where Rich came past again, I really wasn't feeling in race mode just in ride fast mode! Along the open field section was where I finally managed to hit my vetec getting past both Dawe and Long but not without a fair amount of effort. 

The rest of my race stayed uneventful until the final lap when I was happily making my way through the backmarkers and I heard a second splash of a puddle which I'd just gone through... the all too familiar sound of someone on my tail, assuming this to be Phil Morris I looked around to see my usual South West rival of Harry Smith. If this was a scene in a film my look back would have consisted of a shaky cam zoom in on Harry Smith then a pan to my face as my happily riding along face turned into grit... I remember this feeling the desire to win better late than never (even if it was a battle for 3rd!), with the field section, a small bit of forest riding and the random trail behind the start/finish line left to ride this was really open to either of us. Knowing that Harry had hopefully dug deep to play catch up I tried to open up the throttle through the field my gears failing anything lower than 28t my high cadence work with Elite Velo was obviously going to come into play. Two back markers proved to mess up my usual line through the big puddle causing me to go off line allowing Harry to get past for a couple seconds before I re-took him on the climb out the field. With my heart rate back into the danger zone I had to negotiate the final bit of descending an off camber open track which was made all the worse thanks to the gloopy mud and low sunlight shining in from an angle. Thankfully I managed to clear the DH section then went into sprinting along the firetrail with Harry still on my tail, its such a great feeling when you're really working your legs hard all the feedback you're getting from them is STOP STOP STOP but your brain just tells them to shut up. Hitting the final rocky bit of singletrack behind the finish line a bit out of shape was a bit un nerving but thankfully an extra kick of horsepower meant I made it to the finish line just seconds ahead... PHEW but thanks to Harry catching me he had managed to reignite my interest in racing! 

High Fives and Pancakes to everyone who finished and if you didn't I don't blame you was hard out there! Thanks to James Millen for the photo.  

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