What a difference a week makes. Last week we were contending with snow and frost bite, this week the sun shone and I raced in shorts for the first time since September!
The weather helped bring another stellar turnout for the third round of the Gorrick Series at Crowthorne near Camberley (there were over 600 racers at the previous round). The course was pretty flat, with nice flowing singletrack which lead to some very tight racing. I finished a little over two and a half minutes minutes behind the winner but the racing was so close 5th through to 16th were covered by only 50 seconds! In the end I was pleased to finish 10th, definitely an improvement on 16th at the first round.
Again my start was not the best and I got bogged down with slower riders for much of the first lap. With few hills on which to attack it was very hard to make progress but I did slowly pull my way back up through the field. The Masters race starts a few minutes after the Super Vets and we spend the entire race picking our way through the back markers. Catch one at the wrong time and you can rapidly lose 10 seconds on the guy in front and when the racing is this close that can make quite a difference. As the last lap began I could see a chain of around 6 riders up ahead including Alex from South Downs Bikes. I pushed hard and caught them by the finish but was only able to wiggle past a few before we crossed line. Alex frustratingly finished just a handful of seconds ahead of me yet again.
Maybe I needed an extra lap, which is good because next week is the first round of the Southern XC series and an extra lap is exactly what I am going to get! Generally I am feeling good and seem to be racing well, I just need to be more aggressive at the start.
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