ATHelite Dirty Squad

ATHelite's Off Road Division were out in the muck again last weekend. Dawn, Graeme & Frank were knee deep in the mud racing at Mugdock Park (some good pictures to follow). Meanwhile Colin B was taking part in race 2 of the Cyclocross season and here is his race report..........

Lance Armstrong once said “Sometimes you're the hammer, sometimes you're the nail. Today I was the nail.” I pretty much felt like “the nail” after the end of round 2 of the Scottish Cyclocross season at Plean Country Park in Stirling. After finishing in 18th place last week and finishing this race in 14th last year, I had high hopes for a good ride. After some warm up and a few practice laps of the course, I was feeling a little tired but sometime this can be deceiving so I headed to the start eager to get going and get into a rhythm.

I got a great start and was inside the top 15 for the first lap but just felt like I was struggling to get any power out of my legs. Coming through the start/finish at the end of lap one I flew into the first grassy, sweeping corners and lost it on the last right hand turn hitting the deck quite hard but not overly concerned. Time to get up, get my bottle and move on before I lost too many places. Unfortunately, my chain was off, my brakes had completely disconnected themselves when my handlebars twisted in the crash and my bars where squint meaning it took me about a minute to get going again and I was now well down on the majority of the field! Still it was early on and plenty of time to make a lot of these places up again.

Once back on the bike, I kind of panicked and went for it. Addrenalin pumping, I made up several places immediately, and got a few more on the steep run up section. The Monday night intervals with Calderglen Harriers are definitely helping here as I was so much faster on the run up than anyone else. Over the next 5 laps, I made up a lot of spots using the tried and trusted 'carrot on stick' motivation technique. With about 3 laps to go, I was struggling to hang on to the guys I was catching ahead and within a lap, I was starting to get caught from behind. 2 laps to go and those places I took back started to be retaken and I was going backwards. Time to hang on for dear life but by this stage, some of the climbs, I almost came to a standstill. Damn, I had blown up. Into the last lap and I lost about 5 places and I was a struggle to get to the end. I always say that I will never give up unless my bike breaks so I limped to the end and almost collapsed. Phew, so glad that was over.

In the end, I finished 25th which considering the crash and the blow up, wasn't bad. No points though. Looking at the results sheet, I went from 17th to 25th in the last 3 laps! Pretty brutal but lessons learned. The races are starting later now and I am clearly not taking on enough food pre-race. Biggest lesson though...don't panic and trust in your fitness to get back any lost places. Lets hope I don't need that advice for the next race at Strathclyde Park this Sunday. See some of you there I hope.