What a great location - nice little lake, lots of trees, nice grassy field, thousands of ribbons everywhere. Nearly late for the race start but managed to line up behind the others just before the flag was waved. Great to meet this guy before the race - strong as an ox.
And we were off...
and I was almost immediately dropped by the bunch, following an older guy, with no ambitions but to keep up as best I could We were immediately up in the forest, on top of the hill, following sinuous routes around trees with corners of all kinds of angles - less than 90 deg, less than 180 deg, more than 180 degrees etc. The older guy soon dropped me simply because his technical skills were better than mine. I was braking round corners, getting off my bike to get up little hills...all stuff that I wasn't doing 20 minutes later after plenty of practice, but which was slowing me down big style at this point.
After fun in the forest it was time to descend on a nice fast exit over a few tree roots, through a muddy patch and out into the open for a bit - the big field. I think, all together, we were out in the field on 3 separate occasions in each circuit. So it was "trees-field-trees-field-crazy tree bit-final field bit" overall. Anyway, no particular memories of the 1st field bit. Might have involved jumping the 2 planks, which apparently the winner was bunny-hopping.
This was me suffering (maybe not enough?) while hopping over 2 planks placed cruelly half way up a grassy hill.
There was another plank section thankfully along the flat, bottom section:
Anyway, I digress. With the intention more of learning some skills than placing (not that I had that choice in my own hands) I decided to wait to be lapped and follow more experienced riders as best I could, watching and learning to see how they handled the corners, the little muddy steep hills, the pure mud sections etc etc. And little by little I did so, learning how to keep sitting on the saddle through corners to keep weight on the back wheel, how to keep pedalling as much as possible to keep traction. I even managed to start cycling up a crazy little steep mud hill that I'd previously got off to run up.
Soon, I started hearing a friendly voice (Jonathan Halden) encouraging me with gusto. This put a smile on my face and reinforced the enjoyment of the day. I really had no expectations of placing - my powermeter was showing that I was maintaining a near-threshold level of effort so it was good to get in an intense "training session", plus the skills practice was invaluable.
I am really looking foward to the next race, where my goal will be to go in better rested, build on the skills I have already started developing...and try not to be last!
This guy, Jean-Pierre Prudentino, managed to place 17th, no mean feat:
It was great to catch up briefly with Simon Buttner, destined for great things in a race in China any time soon:
A really nice guy and competing round the world these days. Rocked up to the race with almost nothing in his legs from a specifically 'cross point of view and placed 12th (from memory) even with a puncture...Wow.
Thanks for reading!
Here is the ride file -
