Having finally found some time to start catching up I
thought I best start with the last round of the National MTB Series (before the
next one is upon me).
Just about two weeks before this race I was at the physio
and the decision was to try out some wedges that fit between my cleats and my
shoes; the wedges are tapered and so would angle my shoe slightly so that it
mimicked the angle my feet naturally hang at, whilst still allowing the shoe to
clip into the pedals whilst fully horizontal. By doing this it was hoped that
it would reduce foot rotation inside my shoe. This has been thought to be one
of two issues (the second being an asymmetric pelvis) that has resulted in me
getting knee pain, since my knee has effectively been piggy in the middle of
two unnatural rotations and has meant I’ve had to back off the training.
Initial results seemed promising and after a week of low volume and intensity
work I went out for my longest pain free ride since before Christmas. It was
now starting to look as though AQR
Coaching’s Kate Potter could start building me back up. However, I have a
long way to go as I’ve had to go back to Base, day 1 (therefore for me it’s
like being in October again).
So, I’d had a ride the week before at Cwmcarn and had got
my rocky eye back in and boy am I glad I did. I arrived Friday evening to a
blowing gale in the arena field with the course dropping below the arena level
into the disused Copper mines area. This
being a ‘Horton’ course I knew it would be technical and I’d seen some pictures
and video footage that showed some of the course. I opted to do a course walk
on the Friday evening, something I have never done before but am glad I did.
The ‘Ridge Run’ was a really long section of gravity
assisted singletrack straight out the arena, but the consequence was that there
really was nowhere to overtake for a good number of minutes until you got to
the first climb. A loose climb, split in two, followed into more singletrack
and then the first A/B line split. Some mini rock gardens presented themselves
and then this led to ‘The Leveller’. Basically, the right line was an off
camber, with a root across it, line and the left line was pretty much a small
sheer drop (well it looked that way).
After some fluttering of the heart I then analysed it a bit more
thinking less about what it looked like and more about what a bike wheel would
be doing; based on that I was taking the drop and did so throughout practice
and the race. This then led to ‘Down to
Brown’ (dodgy name, but the water at the bottom, in ‘Toxic Pond’ was brown!).
A/B line choices here where B lost you quite a bit of time. The A line was a
slightly tricky entry to a steep, loose
left hand turn which then put you into a steep right hand turn with a small
drop off at the bottom and a left turn out (unless you wanted to end up in
‘Toxic Pond’). The technical rider in me
wanted to nail this, and in practice the next day it took a few attempts and
words with myself about where I was looking but I cleared it. Some more loose
climbing followed to what looked like the surface of Mars and then onto more
singletrack to the last A/B line section ‘The Wall Ride’. This was a bus stop
type feature and required a certain technique and power to clean, which even in
practice I couldn’t manage so I made the decision to take the B here. More
climbing, a loose descent, more climbing still, singletrack, small woodland
section and then into the arena. A really lovely course with some good
technical challenges. My Cotic Soda was loving the course also, with
my Magura Durins soaking up the
drops, and the Magura Marta Brakes
allowing me to really feather my speed for obstacle entry I was properly set.
With me not having any real power in my legs I knew I
wouldn’t be competitive here however my aim for this race was to finish and to
ride technically well. After all, this was a new course and I would come away
with more lesson learnt no matter what the outcome. As suspected I was engulfed
at the start and also a little too polite so went into the singletrack last,
whereby I was held up as I could descend faster than those in front of me. That
advantage was soon wiped out when they were able to climb away from me. The
group of girls immediately in front steadily pulled away as I couldn’t answer
their climbing pace, however as I popped out of the A line at ‘Down to Brown’ I
was suddenly around some of them again and had gained enormously.
Unfortunately, as the race went on I just couldn’t keep that advantage and with
the amount of climbing soon lost touch. I then concentrated on riding well. I
did crash on lap 2 at ‘Down to Brown’ and lost some time there, but again knew
what I’d done wrong (not looking properly where I was going) and rectified this
on lap 3. We had World class representation in the form of Topeak Ergon’s Sally
Bigham and she lapped me towards the end of lap 3 which meant I was pulled from
the race by the Commissaries. Even though the race was shorter than I’d hoped
for me, I’d been really grovelling up the climbs and therefore it was probably
for the best in the end as I was struggling due to my lack of form. I then hit
the turbo for another 15mins to get the legs spun out.
Whilst not a result that I am proud of, I am really proud
of how I dealt with the course from the Friday night course walk, to the
pre-race day and race day riding. I would have been fooling myself to expect a
really good result when I haven’t been doing that sort of training, however it
is a really good basis on which I can now start to build. Over the coming
months I’ll be looking for progress indicators to help keep me on track as
whilst the wedges have helped me, they haven’t cured the underlying problem.
Thanks to Darren Ciolli-Leach for the photos
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