Emma reports from a busy few of weeks racing and training
A couple of weeks after the last national round in
Cornwall I had some domestic issues to sort oop North. Some good friends of
mine agreed to put me up mid-week whilst I did some house faffing. However, I
ensured that the house faffing was relegated to predominately the morning and
early afternoon to enable some biking fun to be had. Whilst the faffing wasn’t
good for me in terms of maintaining proper hydration and nutrition, the riding was
superb; the new trail at Gisburn Forest one evening followed by a trip to Lee
and Cragg Quarries on the Friday afternoon (well it was sort of on the way to
Nottingham!). I have to say that the amount of time and energy that has gone
into both areas is amazing, hats off to all those volunteers who made my rides
fun (even though the weather tried to put a dampener on things).
A small traffic nightmare later and I was welcomed with
open arms by my team mates Rachel Sokal and Anthony Jordan. I’m not sure which
one was worse off from the effects of 24hrs of Exposure; the rider or the help!
Rachel was doubly awesome in that when I came down early Saturday morning to
get my bike washed she’d already done most of it; thank you Rach (and Ant you
were great in your heckling role!).
I (or Rach) was washing my bike at silly o’clock in the
morning as firstly I was knackered/hungry the night before, and secondly I
couldn’t possibly show up to my AQR Skills
day with a dirty bike (what would Mr Potter say?). I was joined on the day by
fellow team mates Matt and Kirsty Prior, it was just us three and Mr Potter
since it seemed some of the others had been scared off! Today we were doing
some Advanced Skill work aimed primarily
at maintaining speed through the twisty stuff. We sessioned sections of
Sherwood’s singletrack, either following the leader or with Mr Potter behind
and observing what each of us was doing. It was also quite interesting
observing and then critiquing other rider’s styles. I did have one instance
where implementing the ‘more haste, less speed’ philosophy was blindingly
obvious as I almost careered off the trail into an angry looking rock.
Overall I had a really good day and came
away with a few points that I need to work on to help me get that little bit
quicker; push the bike into the trail more and more ‘zip’ when switching sides
on the bike.
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| In action at the Southern XC -
Southern XC pic http://www.flickr.com/photos/southernxc/
|
My mad few days of travel wasn’t over and after my Skills
session at Sherwood I hit the road and headed south again. Another early
morning and I was at Crow Hill, a fun, twisty, rooty Southern XC course. It was also Southern
Champs time. I’d missed round one as I really wasn’t ready, however I love Crow
Hill and really wanted to ride and test myself. A good turn out of 10 elite
girls meant the front row was full, plus a really good showing in the other
categories gave a decent start field. The drawback was that, at the start,
myself and another rider had a bit of a coming together, then got partially
engulfed as we tried to navigated the sweeping 180° turn and the entire field
tried for the shortest line around, i.e. the inside line that we were on. I’d
gone well back at this point however the field opened up again and I put the
power down to take as many riders as possible before the first section of singletrack.
I was told by one of my friends I looked as though I’d been kicked the speed I
came past her (helped by a downhill I pedalled rather than freewheeled down). I
managed to maintain contact with a decent group of girls for a period of time
however once again as soon as the going got tacky and some more power was
needed I just didn’t have it. I came through in 8th after the first
lap, got caught by another girl and unfortunately didn’t have the power to even
stay with her. The start of lap 3 was
interesting as the Open Men had just set off and as I approached that first
singletrack section I could see them queuing out of it. Perhaps my politeness
of Cornwall had worn off as I just
muscled my way through (with some ‘pleases’ too of course) and worked my
way around some of the guys until things got moving, a really good overtaking
practice session I thought (we won’t mention the small departure onto the floor
when I reached the limit of the grip envelope). In doing so I must have also
overtaken 8th place briefly as she passed me again, much to my
confusion, on the next fireroad! Muscle fatigue was certainly setting in as the
race progressed and the course degraded, however towards the end of the race I
started to see another rider getting closer. I tried my hardest but couldn’t
catch her, finishing in 9th in the end and just under 2mins behind 8th
but with almost a 6min gap to 10th. Although I was absolutely
shattered I was really happy with how I’d ridden, feeling once again like a
racer. Throughout the singletrack I had also been thinking about the skills
session I’d had the day before and was really enjoying trying to put those
aspects into practice when the course allowed. My speed and power will
eventually come as my training slowly ramps up. I said in my previous blog I
would be looking for little indicators and I felt that this race was a really
good indicator of progress.
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| Anna in action - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinsheldrake/ |
The few days after the mad dash around the country and I
was super tired plus my knee was complaining, so I opted to rest it up.
Thankfully the knee was really just feeling tired and perhaps a little swollen
but there was fortunately no real pain. A few days later and I was feeling as
good as new. With the rest of my team mates otherwise engaged I was looking
around for a pairs partner to tackle SPAM Biking’s Erlestoke12 (although the 6hr not
the 12hr race). Finally, about 16hrs
before the 1200 start time I managed to talk Anna Cipullo, an
MBSwindon/Hargroves Cycles elite rider, out of a solo ride (she thanked me for
it afterwards!). Anna, as the faster
rider, started; although the start was a bit of shock being 8mins early and
she’d barely gotten her wheel swapped back over after getting off the turbo. We
actually had no other real competition as there were no other 6hr Female Pairs.
However, our mission was to at least beat the 6hr Female Team and finish as
high up in the other pairs categories as we could, bearing in mind we might
find ourselves merged into one of them. Anna came through after Lap 1 with only
the 12hr Female team of Four4th lights in front. I started a bit hard and paid
the penalty on certain parts of the course but it was a fun course so the small
torturous bits were just about bearable. It was dry, there was dust, the
singletrack was rooty and twisty (more AQR skills practice), steep little ups,
fun downs (even a Redbull timed section) and one hell of a grass slog
(thankfully dry too). With laps around the 40min mark for us it ended up with
us both doing 4 laps. Anna was pretty consistent throughout, however my lap
times did drop off a little more as the day went on but I maintained as high a
tempo as possible on all laps, even when my legs were screaming at me; I was
however very glad I wasn’t soloing. SPAM were very kind giving us our own
podium in the end (you’ve got to be in it to win it), however we were more
chuffed with having beaten the female team, come 4th in the mixed
pairs and 10th in the Male pairs, not too bad really. I really am so
very thankful to Anna for agreeing to partner with me, it meant that I did one
hell of a hard interval session which will help make me stronger in the long
run; of course no more friendliness as battle once again commences at the next
round of the British Cycling Cross Country Series at Hopton!
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| A successful couple of weeks |
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