2 Races, 1 day!

SW Champs

The venue for the South West Champs was the evergreen Newnham Park, a fans favourite and as I’m sure I mentioned before, probably the best venue for bike racing in the UK.
Maddie and Jay vowed to make it one hell of a course with some great technical sections as well as equally tough up hills. Once again they delivered!
I was excited at the prospect of riding the bear pit for the first time ever since its inclusion at least years NPS round which I marshalled due to my broken collar bone.
I cycled out to Newnham due to the Skyride in the afternoon which would make driving back home in the middle of town a nightmare.
I signed on and after politely turning down a peanut cookie from Jane Smith set out on a sighting lap.

The Course

It was quite muddy along the flat towards the first climb but I knew it would clear in no time with 100+ people ploughing through it. I’m not really sure what the first climb is actually called or if it actually has a name! For reference I’ll call it the Pylon climb due to the electrical pylon that you see.
After the Pylon climb, it was briefly along a flat until we dropped down the mineshaft which included an extremely off camber part with some very tight trees!
Once the mineshaft was cleared it was straight onto the long climb into the bluebell woods singletrack which strangely is probably my second favourite part of Newnham for some reason. It looked magnificent with all the bluebells out in the sun!
The course exited bluebell woods in the usual fashion, a trip through the bomb holes or at least what was left of them after 4x4 supposedly drove through them? We then descended through a slightly off camber section littered with roots and rocks which was mega fun. A little bit further on it was through the river and up into the plantation; but instead of coming out halfway up the pipeline return we descending out of the plantation on what to my mind was a completely new section of singletrack and then we had to climb up the pipeline return. If the gradient didn’t make it tough enough, the fact there was only one really line choice did.
Once your lungs were back in your body there was just the bear pit singletrack to negotiate before along a flat sections and through the wet singletrack and through the bolder field and to the finish.
Easy!

The Race

As it was the SW Champs, we were gridded on the line but I’m not quite sure what method they used but it seemed like it was the top ranked of each category on the front row and then the second ranked on the second row and so on. I would have preferred if they had done it a bit more intelligently as I was initially on the third row and would have had two Sport riders in front of me who are slower than me. Thanks to the second ranked Sport rider not appearing I managed to squeak onto the second row, next to arch nemesis and friend Steve Hodge.

It took a long time to sort everyone out due to the sheer numbers that turned up to race which meant that we were sat on the start line for a long time. It is always strange when you’re so fired up and focused, you get gridded and everything starts to peak only for it to wear off after 5 minutes of sitting there.
We eventually got underway and after about 500 yards we had a hairpin left to get us onto the course which took me and almost everyone by surprise. Cue the heavy braking and feet out!!
I managed to hold my grid position and went through the start finish in 7th but dispatched the two junior riders Harry Forshaw and Ed Welsh on the flat straight away and the Sport rider Sam Barley just after. When we got to the start of the Pylon climb I could see Steve Ferguson with a nice gap to Harry Smith in second and Ian Paine in third; I got some good power and overtook Ian three quarters of the way up the climb to make it a Team Certini – McCaulay’s 1 2 3 before Steve Hodge powered past us on the flat to ruin it.
I jumped past Harry just before the start of the mineshaft and caught up to Fergie at the end of the singletrack and overtook him as started to fire himself at the scenery.
I set off after Steve up the climb into bluebell woods; into the singletrack Steve had a nice little gap on me which I closed down a tiny bit but nothing significant. I closed right up to his back wheel on the bomb hole singletrack as my superior technical ability kicked in and he actually held me up for the last few yards haha
I decided to jump in front of him before the river to see whether his impression of the broken wheezy penguin from Toy Story was because he was struggling or whether it was just the way he breathes. Turns out it was the latter! At least I could say that I was leading the SW Champs!! He took me back starting to climb through the plantation. We continued to cat and mouse as I caught him up on the plantation descent before he gapped me a bit on the pipeline return climb only for me to close him down on the bear pit.
Going across the river before the end of the lap, Steve almost went the wrong way only for me to shout at him! I think he realised he was going wrong just as I shouted but in hindsight I think I should have shouted carry straight on and take a left in 2 miles!
Coming through the start/finish in Steve’s wheel, in my eagerness to keep the pressure on him I turned a bit too tightly on the loose gravel and although I didn’t go down properly, just a foot out to push me back up right, I lost a few metres and I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him again.

Dropping into the Bear Pit!!

I decided not to chase him down because, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, my racing endurance is very poor compared to my one lap power! I had Fergie who was in second place, closing me down up the hills and flats only to crash down the next technical sections. He got past me on the climb up to the bear pit but opted for the B line so I held onto second place for the remainder of the lap.
On the Pylon climb to my surprise I had Ian Paine come past me with Fergie not too far back from him.

Towards the end of the third lap, the tough course started to take its toll on me and I started to lose positions to some Elite riders coming back from early mechanicals. I really started to feel the climbs on my fourth lap with Matt Loake coming past me and I felt my arms starting to cramp up on the final climb up to the bear pit.
In hindsight I think I should have found someone to pass me a bottle; especially on such a hot day.
Coming into the bear pit I managed to crash on the loose off camber corner. I forgot I was on a XC bike and tried to hold a high line to get a fast sweep into the corner and both tyres let go. My chain dropped off and wrapped itself around my mech, costing me about 20 seconds in total with the out of position Luke Eggar coming past me.

My last lap was pretty un-remarkable. I just rode around with the only significant moment being when I caught my dad.

Overall I was very happy with my performance, I rode the technical sections very well and although I dropped right back from the front with my last lap being about 5 minutes slower than my first lap I know I have the power and leg speed to be right up there, I just need to work on maintaining that power and leg speed for a whole race!
As I was riding the final lap, it occurred to me that when I first started racing properly two years ago, I had mega endurance but lacked the power to get myself up to the front but due to my injury hit season last year I have really good power now but lack the endurance. Oh the Irony.
Still the result had given me confidence after two bad national series races; It will be interesting to see where I am performance wise at the end of the year!

Shred Classic

I’m not sure whose Idea it was to have the SW Champs and the Shred Classic on the same day but it was great fun none the less.
After riding to the SW Champs, racing them and then riding home, anyone could forgive me for crashing on the sofa and watching the climax of the Premier League season. Instead I got home, had a shower and a bite to eat, watch the first 20 minutes of the final games and then donned my cycling gear once again and rode the short journey to the hoe.

The start was delayed by an hour due to the numerous other events that were happening on the same day running over.
I used the delay to catch up with newly crowned SW Champ Steve Hodge and Brendan Murphy of Shred as well as some other faces I knew who were racing. Pete Robinson and Jayson Weale of the University club also made an appearance at the classic whilst Seb Lloyd and Tim Blackman cheered on from the side lines without really knowing what was going on and just hoping to see a crash (Tim was looking the wrong way for all five? Crashes that occurred)

I think there were about 30 entries in total which meant there was to be two heats with the top 10 in each heat going through to the final. The rest would go into the repechage where the top 2 would go into the final. I was in a heat with all of the mountain bikers I knew, Jayson and Pete from university.
It was fast and furious from the get go and I found myself managing to comfortably stay in the main group of people for the first 10 minutes and then as some riders started to tire I picked my way past them.
I had a nice strategy for overtaking, I would exit the bottom corner and then jump into the riders slipstream in the big head wind, sweep out wide for the top corner to carry more speed through, power up just onto their shoulder down the back straight so they could clearly see my shadow by the side of them and then using my mountain bike skills, I could take the bottom corner tighter than they could with a bit more speed which allowed me to get some power strokes into the head wind and break them off of my slip stream.
I got myself right on to the back of Jayson with about 12 minutes to go and decided to ease up a bit as I was comfortably in the top 10.

Leading Pete Robinson in our Heat

Once I had finished I suddenly realised that I had qualified myself for the final! D’Oh! More pain to come.
I had fun watching the woman’s race and the repechage which may as well have been named the Shred race as I think all of their riders were in it!! I cheered on Steve Hodge but he clearly wasn’t really too bothered and rode around on his CX bike just for a laugh!

The final loomed with 24 people on such a small circuit it was bound to be a dicey affair!
I missed the pedal straight out of the start and lost the front group straight away. I managed to compose myself and move away from the other riders, trying to claw my way back to the front before the 5 minute barrier which signaled the start of the eliminations. Every time over the line after 5 minutes, if you were last, you were out!
Just before the 5 minute barrier, in no man’s land I was caught by the 3 Mid Devon CC boys who were lapping the whole field. I managed to stay with them for about 5 laps which towed me back towards the rest of the bunch. I saw James Birch just drop off the back of the main bunch and managed to overtake him and eventually gap him.
I could hear the eliminations coming and I was closing in on the next rider in front when I heard James’ name called which meant I was next.

I think I finished 10th which was a cracking result, especially after doing such a tough race in the morning. It would have been nice to see where I could have finished if I had fresh legs!

Thanks

A big thanks to Jay and Maddie for an awesome SW Champs course
Rob and Jane Smith for their continued dedication and hard work with the SW series
Shred for putting on the Shred Classic
Certini for sponsoring me and Specialized for supporting the team!

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United Downs

April 1st marked the second round of the Fully Sussed South West Summer Series down in deepest darkest Cornwall.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to ride the course on the Saturday with a few others and I took my Sister along and tried to teach her how to ride a bike a bit better technically.

The Course
The course was a mountain bike Harvey Dent. The first half of the lap was an old quarry which featured lots of super fun, super flowy single track with optional jump lines. The singletrack was broken up by steep 3 arrow technical sections.
On the contrary, the early part of the second half of the lap was gravely fire road and the end quarter of the lap was incredibly bumpy woodland which was difficult to keep speed over.
The best course of the season so far!!

The Race
Looking at the start list on the Sunday, I noticed the absence of big players John Whittington (3.5 hours away), Sean Frost (road racing) and Luke Eggar (being a Muppet)
This meant that I had the best chance possible of a podium in a South West series race. It would be a fight between myself, fellow team mate Harry Smith, good friend Steve Hodge of Shred Racing and James Horton from Cannondale Racing.

Harry was first into the single track after a loose stoney hill start, James Horton was 2nd, Steve 3rd and the Southfork Junior rider Ed Welsh pipped me into 4th. Thankfully for me he punctured about a mintue later so I didn't lose any time on Steve and James.
By the first technical section, Harry had a gap with me, Steve and James squabbling amongst ourselves.
It stayed like that for the first lap with Harry not getting too far ahead. Now that we had settled I was able to take the jump lines on the first set of single track to earn some air miles and have some fun.
We stayed stuck in our position until the second half of the second lap when James decided to bridge the gap to Harry whilst Steve eeked just far enough ahead of me to put some back markers between us going into the single track and escaped.

I carried on pushing hard but had a lull on the third lap and dropped 30 seconds on Steve but carried on pushing and perked up again, only losing 2 seconds to him on the fourth lap. However as predicted I lost 30 seconds more time on the last lap as my lack of race fitness kicked in.

Sherwood Pines - NPS 1

Ever since I started racing, the first round of the national series has been at Sherwood Pines without fail. Another certainty couples Sherwood; it will be my worst race of the year!
The main reason for this trend is that the course has always been road bike-esque; it is always a few tight twiddly bits in the trees with nowhere to pass where I would be frustration by the incompetence of the rider in front of me and then onto the long fire roads where I would struggle to stay in the slipstream of the rider.

I was very excited to hear that the course has been completely redesigned for this year!

Practice
Arriving late Friday evening in the campervan with my parents we rose Saturday morning, eager to get out on the course to size it up. My Dad tailed me for one lap so he could twig all of the sneaky lines I see.
The start was the usual sweeping bends around the field and onto the fire road. From then on the similarities ended! We only went half way up the long fire road before swinging left in to some tight single track, a bottle neck zone for sure!!
More nice single track was linked up with some sections of open track but not too many fire roads to speak of. There were a few very short, very steep tip ups that would again cause bottle necks for sure during the race.
There were two cool technical sections that although I found them easy, I knew other would find them difficult which really pleased me. Also there was a drop which wasn’t easy by far as it was a bit stepped and also a reasonable size log that could have (and did) quite easily claim riders in their red zone or tired in the last few laps.
All in all I was extremely impressed by the course. It wasn’t exactly Dalby or Newnham but was a heck of a lot more technical than usual which suited me down to the ground.


*

Race Day
I started Sunday as usual, breakfast followed by going down to see my Mum start and watch the first two laps of the Elite Woman's race and cheer my Mum through once. What was amazing was seeing my Mum come through in 2nd place in the Grand Vets race on lap 1 and pulling out from the riders behind on lap 2 to earn a genuine podium!! Last year she was always on the podium due to lack of riders but on Sunday she beat 3 other rider! Cracking.

I started my warm up at 11, riding up the long forest road a few times at an easy pace to engage my muscles. After about 10 minutes I went back to the camper and had a good stretch out to loosed up all my muscles and then I went back onto the forest road for some more spinning with a few fast legs and power pedals in the mix to really get the muscles warm!

I was really satisfied with my warm up and although with all the standing around before the start and the gridding I cooled down a lot I knew I had my muscles pre-stretched and deeply warmed.
I managed to sneak onto the front row of the grid in 8th place which was ideal, a clear path off the start.
The start gun (literally a gun) went and made me jump with the loud bang. I found my left pedal at the first time of asking and powered away with a good start.
I heard the commentator say about a big crash behind me and I hope that anyone caught up in that was alright
I hit the fire road in about 14th place but picked up a place by diving up the inside going into the tight single track and then heard a big pile up behind me moments later when I think someone tagged a tree!
On the next section of fire road I got over taken by team mate Harry Smith who started from the back of the grid! But I overtook 3 riders to get myself to about 10th with Harry in front and Steve Hodge behind me. Entering the next section of singe track the unthinkable happened....

My rear mech just decided to fuck itself... Literally, there were no roots, stumps, branches, stones, anything for that matter in sight!!
The back wheel locked up so I thought I had somehow gotten something jammed in there; at first I thought it was a branch but as I said above, there were no branches.
I looked down to see my chain completely slack and thought ahh hell I’ve broken the mech hanger, only to see that the hanger was fine. It was then I noticed that the mech had completely broken in two and once I got onto the next fire road I discovered that the lower cage of the mech had deeply embedded itself in the back wheel. It broke two spokes, bending 3 others and wrapped itself around another.

It was my first mechanical failure in a race ever! I guess there is never a good time for a mechanical but I would have preferred it in a local race rather than a national race.
Due to my back wheel being jammed, I had to walk about 2 miles back to the arena carrying my bike; I’ll tell you now, 12 kilos gets very heavy and awkward after half a mile.
I arrived back at the arena just as the leading Experts were coming around to finish lap 3 and seeing Harry in 6th and Steve in 9th was when the anguish kicked in and I got very pissed off knowing that I would have only been a bit further back.

Yep, that's Fucked!

It's seen better days...

Outlook
I was annoyed for most of Monday but a nice evening ride yesterday put it to bed. Something I learnt early on in sailing is how to deal with a disappointing race a take as many positives from it as possible. I know my race endurance isn’t fully there yet and I wanted to finish in the top 20 at Sherwood and looking at the results I think I would have made the top 15 which is good.
Unfortunately I will be gridded at the back at the next national at Dalby which isn’t great but at least there are some big hills that will allow me to get further up the field than a flat course.

I am looking to have fun few days at United Downs for the Fully Sussed South West Series Round 2 this weekend. I’ll see you there!

Dalby Forest NPS 2

There will always be a few certainties at Dalby Forst. The sat nav will be incredibly off, there will be massive queues in practice for the technical sections and it will take an eternity to get there.
So where the hell did the hail come from when I was practicing!!

I had (naturally) cleared all the technical sections first try on the demanding course in practice as I have done in all of the three time I have ridden it. However, the three/four years it has been in use is really beginning to show now with lines really being carved out.
The added moisture didn’t really help proceedings after a bit of deliberation I sat in the campervan Saturday evening putting a Bonty Mud X tyre on the front and moving my Schwalbe Rocket Ron to the back in place of the Racing Ralph.
I opted to ride my S-Works Stumpjumper Hardtail 26” due to the big hills in Dalby; plus my 29er Epic was at the menders getting a new front brake.

The shoe change seemed to be a great move as I watched the morning race and my Mum take the win in the Grand Vet race, annihilating the other rider with the winner of the previous round taking a look on Saturday and deciding against it.
It was insanely muddy!

12 Noon came and I was gridded on the back row due to my bike exploding at the last race. The Elite racers had a start loop to complete before completing 5 full laps. We had the same minus the start loop, in honesty I was hoping that we would be knocked down to 4 laps.
Our time came, the start gun went and I powered away; a gap opened up in front of me and I took full advantage and gained a ton of positions as riders tiptoed around the muddy corners.
Into the climb in the first bit of singletrack I gained two position by taking a high and most importantly hardpacked line. Coming back into the field I was in about 8th position but lost a couple of places, with fellow local rider Steve Hodge coming back through the pack after a timid start.

It was plain sailing until I got to the rocky steps where I binned it quite badly, I’m really not sure what happened but I seem to come unclipped and rode about two steps on the handlebars before coming gracefully to rest on the side.
I jumped back on only to find my front brake lever wasn’t there but thankfully it had just twisted round. I lost a load more places sorting that out and just set about composing my self and getting to the climbs to make up some places.

Worry Gil was up next and I almost came off! I blew both feet off the pedal but recovered it nicely, the first sign it wasn't to be my day. I got to the technical climb to  the tune of the marshall shouting that nobody had ridden it so get ready to jump off. He wasn’t wrong. The first slope of it was a mud slide and had to be run. That was half of my 26” advantage out of the window.
Coming into the Medussa drop I was a bit pissed off at how things were going but committed myself only to slide out right near the bottom in the insanely thick mud.

First Lap Crash

We got onto the big long climb and I told myself, right time to unleash the kraken and take back some places. My brain relayed the message to my legs only to get a reply of (in your best Scotty impersonation), we’re giving it all she’s got cap’in.
I had been feeling strangely tired all week (ask my housemate, I barely mention it!)after doing a road race the previous Sunday. But I had purposely rested myself for the race but I did feel sluggish on my practice lap.
I slogged my way up the hill with the mud not helping whatsoever, taking back two positions but I soon lost them on the flat and finished out the rest of the lap feeling incredibly lethargic.

I told myself just to re-group, get a gel and energy drink on board, just tap out a rhythm and get some places back. Unfortunately it didn’t work like that and although I cleared all of the lap with no crashes I didn’t feel and better and was getting slower. Before I knew it I had the lead juniors coming past and more of them than usual.

I continued to plod on round with even the top of the Sport race coming through me, I just told myself to get to the finish and hope that riders in front of me withdrew or crashed out. I just couldn’t afford two retirements in two national races.

I came across the line, second last in the whole of race 2 with a result of 19th in the Expert category. 20th is okay considering I was targeting a top 15 result but I don’t want to think about what could have been if I was on form.
However much I want to blame the bike, although it didn’t help me in any way; I just wasn’t on song at all and I need to move quickly to rectify the problem.
I have no doubt I will sort it out.
The last time I had a drop in form like this was when I was sailing with my sister; people started to doubt us and thought we had lost it.

We came 5th at the World Championships that year...

1st Chard Wheelers Circuit Race

I drove up to RNAS Merryfield in Ilton, Yeovil for the 1st Chard Wheeler Circuit Race on Sunday the 19th March with Jayson Weale who is seemingly turning into my road orientated travelling buddy.

I have never done a circuit race before and in fact until a day before I actually mistakenly thought it was a Criterium race!! The only crit race I have ever done was last years Shred Classic where I crapped my pants for 20 minutes around a small twisty loop made of metal barriers until I tried to break off the front just for the sheer hell of it. As I recall I led for about a lap and a half whilst swallowing my lung and almost throwing up... I then got dropped from the bunch and didn’t have enough time to make it back into the bunch for the sprint.

Despite my lack of experience I was quietly confident that I could surprise myself since I entered the 4th cat only race and as far as I can gather from fellow racers, 4th cat races are preverbal carnage due to the wide ranges of abilities and very rarely end in a sprint finish. Now as you know I’m a more than handy mountain bike rider and naturally that equates to some decent speed on a road bike and I was confident that I would be able to put that to some good use.

When we arrived at the airfield, the first thing that struck me was the openness of the airfield (Duh of course!) and with the 10mph breeze blowing, staying in the bunch would save a lot of energy. The second thing was how big the circuit was!! As I said I thought it was a crit race at first but to see that it was a 4 mile lap wasn’t quite what I was expecting.

Nevertheless I donned my Lycra and did a small warm up before taking my place on the line with a good 30 other riders. We were told it was the perimeter circuit we were using (meant nothing to me) and the race would be 50 minutes plus 1 lap.
The whistle went and be all rolled out and got into the groove; one guy punctured with his very first pedal stroke, he must have been gutted!!
I used the first lap to suss out the course and try and get used to riding in close company whilst trying to concentrate and not look at the harrier making a lot of noise in the sky.

We finished the first lap in about 8 minutes so I tried to gauge that we would be doing more or less 7 laps and tried to formulate a rough game plan.
I planned to stay in the bunch for at least the first 3 laps unless a sizeable or quick looking break formed and then on lap 4 eek towards the front more as a move was more likely to come around then and at the very latest make my own break with 2 laps to go.
As the laps carried on I realised just how open the course was and how much of a drag you got in the bunch! Every now and then I kept getting hung on the outside of the bunch and immediately have to put in double the effort to get back in cover.
I underestimated the pace as well and it was obvious my warm up was not at all sufficient and I didn’t feel great at all.
I came to the conclusion that I needed to get in a break.

Setting Off

The laps carried on trickling down and nobody had a breakaway that lasted more than a quarter of a lap. It was either charged down of they dropped back as there were too few of them with too far to go.
I really had to control myself to not try a breakaway early; I kept having to tell myself one more lap, one more lap.
Eventually we reached a lap and a half to go and down the back straight with the wind behind me I launched off the front!! My heart rate immediately spiked and I time trialed away! I looked behind to see if anyone was coming with me but nobody reacted and I was off on my own, seemingly death or glory.

I got a good gap and took the bell but hit the main straight after the start/finish line and was into a lovely headwind and started to slow and struggle a bit. I kept checking over my shoulder, hoping I would make it onto the back straight with a bit of time on the bunch to try and maintain the gap as I knew towards the end of the lap they would start looking at each other, not wanting to lead out the sprint.
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be and I got caught right at the top of the straight. I managed to hang in the bunch and was towards the front of it planning another surprise assault on the last quarter of the lap to try and grab the win. Once again I was unfortunate and left it too late to go and got boxed in and when we got on the straight for the sprint everyone moved over to the left and I missed the jump for the main sprint. I sprinted anyway but was soon aware I was nowhere near the points positions so I eased up and coasted over the line.

I enjoyed my first experience of circuit racing and after chatting to Jayson on the way home about the race (he came 2nd in his race!) he was telling me what I should have done and all the tactics of circuit racing I now know I can do better in the future.
When I launched off the front, I should have just ridden 100 yards off to see if anyone would come with, if they don’t then just drop back into the bunch as it is a waste of energy and time.

Hopefully I will be able to hit up the Summer evening series and put those tactics into play and get some good results.

PowerBreathe

I have recently acquired a PowerBreathe and look quite ridiculous right?!

I remember seeing them in the Argos catalogue a few years ago and just knocked them off as some random training tool that probably doesn’t work.
When I did my first TT a few weeks ago, when we arrived Jayson said he forgot to bring his PowerBreathe. I asked him about it and if it actually worked and he told me that it was actually pretty decent and is really useful for warming up.

That evening I looked into it a bit more and decided to acquire one and test it out. If it helps then it’s ideal but if it doesn’t then it’s only £20 down the drain!!
The idea is that you do 30 breathes twice a day and it improves your lung strength, effectively increasing your performance by up to 4%

All I know at the moment is that I can comfortable do resistance level 2 and just about level 3 and can’t even budge it at level 10!!

I’ll let you know in the future if I feel it is helping me in any way.


Please, form a line ladies!

The Stinger

The Stinger

 I picked up two fellow University students Pete Robinson and Seb Lloyd on Sunday 19th Feb morning and drove out to Newnham Park for this year’s edition of the Stinger.
If you are unaware of what the Stinger is, it’s an off road duathlon that consists of a 5km cross country run, 20km cross country cycle and a 3km hellish fell run.
Sounds lovely right?! That’s why I can never work out why it is always a sell out!
Maybe it encourages runner types to have a go at race which incorporates the bike where they won’t be completely down the pan, maybe it’s the challenge of a tough race where you can be proud of yourself for finishing or maybe people just enter for the sheer enjoyment of romping around the beautiful Newnham Park without the risk of getting shot at!

We arrived a little late (my fault) and soon got ourselves together with the bikes and shoes strategically placed in the transition zone ready for the a jelly-legged change over.
I would like to take moment to thank fellow team mate Harry Smith for lending me his bottle cage as I had stupidly forgotten to equip mine and left it at home (I’m blaming it on being the first race of the season).

I took my place on the start line with 100 others and tried to find some reasoning behind the impending hell I was surely to enter; usually I have a few pre race butterflies but on this day I was just asking myself what on earth I was doing here. I am by no measure a runner, I did cross country at primary school because let’s face it, everyone did! I used to have a yearly 1500m outing during secondary school because nobody else wanted to do it. The only running I had done since then was the previous year’s Stinger when I ran for Harry Smith as I had a broken thumb.

The "Easy" Run
Armed with less preparation than last year, the whistle went, Martin exploded away on the quad and I started putting one leg in front of the other. I started at the front because I thought to myself that even though I would be over taken by every man and quite possibly a dog I will at least finish the run quicker than if I started at the back.
The run consisted of one bike lap which took in some of the usual Newnham features; up the cottage return, around bluebell woods, through the bomb holes and down the field to start/finish area.
I didn’t lose too many places on the first fire road before starting to ascend cottage return and to my surprise I started to actually pick up a few places! I overtook team mate Gary Andrews and shortly after overtook also team mate Maddie Horton as well as a few others.
However, my joy was short lived as on the first fire road Gary came back past me and I have the feeling I was holding people up in the next single track section as about 6 people came past me on the next fire road section including young Certini – Fully Sussed whippet Harry Forshaw. I didn’t lose any more places after this though and reached transition buoyed with a very good run but lost about two minutes on most others as I tried to stay on my jelly legs whilst changing shoes and donning a helmet.

The Bike
I jumped on my bike out of transition and put the hammer down as riding a bike is what I specialise in!! Within a lap I caught up and passed Gary and Harry and earlier on in the seconds lap I had overtaken Maddie.
I continued to blast my way around the bike laps and came into transition in 6th place with my sister Juliet Long getting quite excited next to me in transition offering to tie my shoes laces for me. I declined her offer and started the run along as I had nobody close in front or behind.

The Extreme Run
The first few hundred metres of the run were nice and flat but I knew (from experience and knowing the Hortons) that it was all about to change.
Sure enough I was pointed through a river by Lisa and Rosie Andrews which I almost belly flopped into courtesy of a stumble just before it. Up the other side was a monumentally steep. My legs which up until this point had been fairly fresh died within 10 feet of vertical ascension. I ended up crawling up bits of it as my thighs screamed hell Mary. I even briefly considered rolling back down again but the sight of Duncan Baldie at the top spurred? me on and he pointed me in the right direction which was first off flat, allowing my muscles to get some oxygen back into them (or what little there is at that altitude)
The next section of the run was off camber and through uncharted woodland, that Columbus would be proud to discover. With nothing more than a few bits of course tape tied onto tree branches to aim at, I soon discovered why Columbus was nowhere in sight as my leg went out knee deep into a bog! I carried on navigating my way through the deadly bogs (they eat shoes you know!) and rivers.


I finally came to some fire road, only to be pointed up another monstrous bank! By this point my legs were completely shot and I pretty much walked up it with the occasional burst as I gave everything just in case there was someone closing fast behind me. I finally reached the top of the bank and mercifully looked down to see that there was nobody in sight!!
The next section of the run was along the ridge of the bank which was littered with tyres, leaves and branches. I am amazed that the Horton’s didn’t fashion a Marines style tyre run for us to go through!
The ridge soon turned extremely off camber and I started to lose my left foot as it slipped away every 5 steps or so. After 5 minutes of this I reached a final steep bank which praise Vishnu was going down! It was then only a short distance along a fire road to the finish!

I was so pleased to come in to the finish without relinquishing any places on the final run and took my free mug from Martyn and went to get my duly deserved free cup of tea

Thoughts on the Course
I thought the course was good but to be honest you can blindly throw three darts at a map of Newnham Park, join them up and you will have a good course! That’s how great the venue is.
I would have preferred to have gone down the cottage return instead of slogging up it but I guess it means we’ll go down it at the SW champs (hint, hint). The benefit of going up the cottage return was being that we had to go through the river single-track the other way to usual which I think flows better.