Racing for fun - the 2010 British XC Series at Dalby

Holy moly what a blast yet another chance to bike the World UCI Cross Country circuit at Dalby this time as part of the British XC Series for 2010. Having just raced this circuit a couple of weeks before at the Nutcracker I knew what I wanted to achieve and I'm not talking about times or positions cos you don't have those sort of goal when you're doing it for fun! But there was a certain rock feature that I'd totally bottled last time round that just had to be faced down. 

Arriving early enough to go and have a look at the said rocky ramp my mate tried to convince me that it was all in my head. Apparently you just needed to cycle like stink until just before you hit the rock and then hold on while you and bike eased effortlessly up and over? Sounded simply apart from the small streak of self preservation that kept saying stuff like 'are you completely nuts you're going to break at least one bone if you try to get over that' and 'brake NOW'. Doing my best to ignore such voices in my head and following close on the heels of Ruth we tore along the fire track and rocketed up the seemingly vertical stone ... I was over the top and still in one piece. It felt like I had a train in my chest my heart was beating so violently and the ton of adrenaline that had just poured into my system was actually making it pretty difficult to breath but I'd done it. We practised a few more times. I knew I could do it now but I wanted to be a bit more in control rather than on the verge of going airborne, however, as I discovered too slow and you're forced to put a foot down at the top. We decided the mental barrier was sorted and the fine tuning would come during the race, it was time to have a quick recky of Medussa's Drop and consider the options.

We timed our arrival at Medussa's drop to perfection. The first aid crew were carefully helping a battered cyclist to his feet with what looked suspiciously like a broken shoulder. My mind was made up. I really didn't feel the need to take that sharp right hand diversion today; the chicken run would do me just fine. Perhaps I'd come back and get my head round that particular challenge next time. I was pretty sure that the 10 seconds I might save on the more vertical descent wasn't going to make any difference to my race.

So all that was left to do was the race itself. Usually I hate the first lap of a race, struggling to get my breathing regulated but today I'd had so much adrenaline before the race that I felt ready to go and even managed to hang onto Ruth's back wheel ... until we hit our first short ascent and then she was gone. Everything was going well and I was just completing my second lap when I had my one and only mishap of the day. Just before coming back onto the starting field I heared 'rider on the left' behind me and moved over. I must have momentarily lost concentration because the next thing I knew my handlebars were facing the other way and a large wooden gate post was trying to embed itself into the right hand side of my body. After coping successfully with a relatively technical course it was the height of embarrassment to miss a gate way. I scrambled back onto my bike praying nobody had seen and got out of there pronto. Still I did do my best ascent of the day over the rocky ramp on the third lap and then to my total amazement (and everyone else's I think) arrived over the finishing line to hear I had got third place - a podium finish in the British XC Series was too good to be true. It's never likely to happen again but it just goes to show that you never know what you can do until you give it a go!