So the week leading to the national didn't exactly go to plan with me, yet again, coming down with another bug :(..... Just my luck. Despite this my legs still felt really good and I was looking forward to racing hard :) all I had to do was stay positive!
We travelled down saturday afternoon to ride the course that evening but still feeling ill I only manged one very slow lap and decided to wait till the following morning before riding parts of the course again. Even from riding the course slowly I could tell I was really going to enjoy myself, with the short sharp fire road climbs and technical sections playing in my favour.
Sunday morning arrived all too quickly for my liking but feeling much better and still positive about my performance, I headed out to practise a few bits of the course and check my bike was working smoothly. Following this, a warm up on the turbo called my name and then before I knew it I was on the start line next to my main rival Katy Winton waiting for the gun to go off.
I lead from Katy through the first sections off fire road before she jumped in front going into one of the technical sections. Here I started to loose contact with Katy's wheel and pile up of girls in one of the drop off sections caused chaos which katy took advantage off and managed to get round quicker than me, putting in a gap between us. I couldn't get back to her and the gap was getting bigger so I focused on limiting the damage.
At the end of the first lap I was in second and still pushing hard to keep the gap the down as much as possible. Hunting down riders one by one I finished my second lap, still feeling very strong to be told by dad that katy was floundering. This ignited something inside of me. I went on a charge, attacking everything, which in places sent me veering off course instead of the preferred course.
I crossed the line in second only 4 minutes down on Katy which is a big improvement of the 7 from the last round and taking into account my week before I was veryy pleased with how it went. The course was superb with a mixture of everything, suiting me down to a tee!
A thanks has to be made to my fans dad, rich, james tom an laura who seemed to be on every corner of the course cheering me on :) and of course the WXC team in the pits.
All that's left to say is.......Bring on round 3 :)
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