The story of my racing career; a battle between time won climbing to time lost descending. Yesterday was the third round of the British National series and was one of the best cross-country courses of recent years and in my opinion, true cross-country racing. Around 50:50 split climbing to descending, it was a real test of riding. 

A test which I passed with rainbow colours up but received a ‘could do better’ on the way back down. The start went straight into the long climb and I did an excellent job at clawing my way up to the top 6 - still within myself - thinking I was finally going to be have a battle for a podium spot that I have longed for.

Hitting the decent, I was ragged, dropping my chain resulting in further raggedness. The trail was one which had to be ridden smoothly, carrying speed through the burmed corners. After my panic with my chain, I lacked this flow and went downhill from there. I lost my head worrying about my lack of ability, ironically causing me look at the floor and brake late into corners, with the rattle of Mr.Crawforth’s bike getting closer and closer; I conceded three places by the bottom.

Playing catch up on the climb, I used my strength to pull back some time as a buffer and a couple of places for what was turning out to be the a problem I should no longer have. It wasn’t enough; I conceded three places by the bottom. 

The race turned out to be a case of damage control on the climb rather than using it for a good placing - not what I had expected during practice. I was surrounded by thoroughbred Scottish descenders so maybe I’m being hard on myself but I should have been using the descent to bridge up to the lead group after my strong start or at least holding my place to ride to the chase group for a top 10. 

I spent a lot of the Winter getting some excellent technical coaching from Andy and had made massive improvements, so much that I no longer considered it a weakness but yesterday I was brought (sloppily) back to the ground.

I finished 11th (loosing all places on the downhill) after a final climb battle to get within the UCI points. It is a good result but to know I’ve got the physical ability, but am still let down by the mountain biking is incredibly disheartening and frustrating, and I can’t be happy with it. 

I still have a massive drive to fill in that limiter but there is only so many times I can take a blow to my results because of it and get the feeling I’m in the wrong discipline…second to the fact that climbing courses like that only appear once in a blue moon these days. We will see what Kirroughtree brings.