My XC season opener at Whinlatter

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BY: Katie Carmichael

Published: 23rd March, 2014

You wait all winter for an xc race and then three come along at once. 23 March
was the date chosen for the first round of both the SXC and the Nutcracker, and
for the Whinlatter Mountain Bike Challenge. Having missed out on Whinlatter
twice now due to snow and clashes I decided this was the year to give it a go.

With B&B booked, we headed down on Saturday. When we turned off the M6 to head
to the Lakes I was slightly horrified to see the amount of snow on the hills.
Needless to say most of the evening was spent debating what to wear.

We woke to glorious sunshine and I managed to talk myself out of going for full
on thermals which is just as well. It was pretty warm on those climbs! A gilet
was just enough to keep the chill off on the descents.

With parking close to registration and a very slick sign on I was ready to race.
Those who had identified themselves as ' elite' riders were corralled for a mass
start with everyone else starting at intervals to avoid first lap bottlenecks.
I spotted one other female and a ponytail somewhere up ahead, but didn't really
know who my competition was.

Lap one was a case of settling in, picking people off on the early climbs and
trying to hold my position on the descents. I'm much more of a climber than
descender, so the first lap for me is always about sussing it out. To my
delight this course had everything I was hoping for in a season opener. Long,
lung busting climbs, and fun, flowy descents.

Lap two was a hoot. By now I knew what was coming and took the opportunity to
push it a bit more on the downhills. I had a couple of sketchy corners but
figured that was just because I was going harder. Most of the descents were on
trail centre trails, so they were ideal for getting ever so slightly out of my
comfort zone, feeling the wheels go away from me, but knowing that if I stayed
relaxed I wouldn't come a cropper.

With lap distances of just over 11 miles, and 600 metres of climbing, I was
starting to feel it after the second transition. The climbs were still fun
though, some fire road, some through woodland and forest. It wasn't till this
lap that I noticed the views. Wow! Pretty spectacular. A sure sign that I'd
lost focus though, so I tried to keep my mind on the job. Descending this time
was a question of trying to keep it smooth - keeping my head up and going easy
on the brakes.

Finishing in just over 3 and a half hours, I was ready to hand over my dibber.
Results indicated that I was in third, some considerable time behind first place who was way up the leaderboard.  I was delighted when final results were issued and it turned out I was second - the super fast time was an error. 

All in all a great event and one that I'll definitely be coming back to. Here's
hoping the race organisers get their heads together before fixing their dates
next year!

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More on the Whinlatter MTB Challenge 2014:

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