West Midlands CX League Rd 12, 5 Dec 2021

I was glad to even make the start line of this race!

As usual the postcode of the race was put into Google Maps and we were scheduled to be there just in time for the course practice and warm up. However when we arrived at the postcode we were on the wrong side of the river Severn from where the race was… we were 1 mile away from the race however it would take 45min to drive there🤦🏼‍♀️ and would arrive 2 minutes after my race started…! With a lot of very ‘tactical’ driving we took 5 min off the estimated arrival time which was great as I was very worried I was going to miss my race.

When we arrived at the race I got my bike straight out of the car while my dad ran and got my number and chip. Everyone was already on the start line, I had less than 5 minutes meaning I didn’t get a warm up or even a chance to look at the course🙄

However as soon as the race started I sprinted to the front from the back row in the grid and didn’t change position the whole race which was good. A course practice would have been useful as the course was very technical and I had no idea what was coming which made the race more exciting! The best bit of the course was a cool spiral which I wasn’t expecting and a big downhill which went straight through a big puddle🤩. The only problem I had during the race was as there was so much running and the ground was muddy my cleats got so full of mud I couldn’t clip back in for the uphills so spent a lot of time kicking my pedals trying to clear them… oh and also the race went too quickly, 50min was not long enough🥲

I am very happy with how the race went (4th overall and 1st senior), since working with Tim over the last few months my power has improved which meant I could go fast on the flats and uphills, and get a really good start, I just need to get better at the technical sections.

Aoibh Clarke