Midlands XC round 3 - mud bath

I keep vowing to get better at updating this regularly and have so far not really managed it! However, I will manage this from now on, honest...

The weekend before last (2nd August) was the third round of the Midlands XC series in Cannock Chase. There was also a race on the 2010 Nat Champs course as part of the Southern XC series, but since we have to go round the M25 it takes forever to get to these races and we decided it was easier to head north. Cannock is also an awesome place to ride so we were expecting a good course.

We stayed at Chris's parents in Nottingham the night before and took in the delights of the River Festival fireworks. It was a great display. The next morning we woke early and loaded the car full of bikes and kit and hoped that the rain which had caught us out the day before on our ride would stay away for the race. It had rained on and off all week and the trails would no doubt be muddy enough without more water. Arriving at the race venue we were reminded of Gorrick races as we drive down a forest road and parked up slighty in the undergrowth off to one side. I quickly kitted up and went down to sign on whilst Chris made up bottles and kitted himself up and we headed off to look around the course. The rain of the week had certainly taken its toll and lots of the trails were sloppy, with some big puddles on either side. Where this cleared the course was typically Cannock, lots of climbs, tight singletrack and steep descents which were made comical by their slipperyness - typical off the back of the saddle let go of the brakes and hope stuff. I loved it. Well apart from about 1km of the 5km loop where there was no chance that riding was going to be possible in the race.

I made it back in time to quickly remove a few layers and line up on the fire road. There was one other person in my category - Amelia Cambridge of Rutland CC, and I had a bit of a chat with her as we were waiting for the youngsters, Vets and Open Male racers to go off and then all the women lined up together and hit the start hill. A couple of juvenile girls and masters racers went off ahead of me, but by the top of the climb I only had the juveniles in front. Going through the first lap we were stuck in a few queues as the Open and Vet met got stuck in bottlenecks. I was riding just behind Hollie Bettles (XCracer.com/Trek) and we had quite a bit of fun getting past people and trying not to loose control on the descents. I was riding slightly faster down than Hollie and came past her just at the bottom of one hill before the long climb of the lap. I apologised for cutting her up a bit to which she replied 'don't worry but I'm just going to try and sit on your wheel to get back up to Beth' - the girl in the lead in her race. With this target in mind I decided to give her as good a slingshot as I could and dug deep. When Hollie came past towards the top of the hill we had definitely made some inroads into the gap.

Coming through the start/finish I was just behind Hollie again and we set out on lap 2 together. It was nice riding with someone for once especially since she was not in my category and we could work together quite well. The second lap was slightly easier since we had fewer people in our way, although the running section at the top of the hill was getting more annoying - I'm not a great runner at the best of times and running in deep mud is exhausting! Still it was more successful than trying to ride and spinning the back wheel round and round and round. I was really enjoying the descents however, and was riding them pretty well, just managing to stay in control and going pretty fast - such fun! I must have gotten a little over confident at one point and caught my bar end round a tree. Over the bars I went with my bike crashing down on top of me. No damage done however, other than a bit of mud everywhere on my LHS. Recovering from this mishap I left Hollie to go in, in second place at the start/finish and headed out on my final lap.

This was a bit of a comedy lap, I slipped off the trail a number of times including once when I somehow managed to twist my bars round and had to stop and straighten them again. But I got round without injury at least and managed to ride the difficult and annoying (ask Chris about this one!) bowl shaped turn down onto the fire-road, only to be so excited I forgot to steer and went straight across the fire-road into a ditch! Despite this I finished first and felt I had mostly ridden pretty well.

We had a good break between mine and Chris's races this time and it was nice to be able to hang out a bit. I also took to opportunity to grab a massage from a great guy who was interested in my tight left calf and right quad and to stand atop the podium and 'do the arms'. After a couple of hours it was time for Chris to go and warm-up for his race. He was not expecting that much, since it was unlikely that he was recovered from the 12 hours of racing the weekend before. Still it was likely to have been a little annoying when, as in every other race this year, the entire field rode away up the hill! I settled in at the feedzone and had a chat with Luke Webber, the newly appointed MTB web editor for British Cycling, who although normally an expert had raced the Open race because he needed to dash off part way through the afternoon to commentate on the World Cup taking place in Canada. It was nice to have some company for the first lap at least!

Chris came through after one lap in fifth place. With no safety in numbers this time he was the last man through, but was not far behind race organiser James Hampshire - a point which I made quite clear to him. Apparently by this point the course was fun, but frustrating since it looked like lines had appeared but they were simply smoothed mud from where walking racers had been pushing their bikes, but it wasn't quite wide enough to ride. It didn't stop Chris from trying and failing every lap however! He tapped out five extremely consistent laps again, finishing with a final lap which was faster than all but the leader of the expert field. He eventually overtook James to take fourth place. Not bad considering the fatigue that was clearly still in his legs from the weekend before.

Chris also visited Dave Sutton for a nice mixture of extremely painful massage and a chat about international travel. Whilst we both watched James deconstruct his bike very adeptly it has to be said, to pass it on to his team-mate who had had an unfortunate accident with his!

Thanks to Nadine and James for another excellent race. Shame the weather was quite as helpful as it could have been!