Scottish CX Rd 4 Irvine Beach Park, 6 Nov 2022

In typical Scottish fashion it had been very wet all week, so I was fully expecting a mud bath of a race. The day prior I had a free ride so took this opportunity to head over to the course to have a nosy - good job I did as the ground was hard and not really any mud to be seen. The course had a couple of sand sections, steep ascents and descents and some tight twisty corners. A typical cross course really.

Arriving on the day it was dry and sunny but rather cold due to the wind. I got signed on and warmed up before heading down to the start area. The gridding began in a bizarre way with the vets setting off 1minute ahead of the seniors. This was my first race of the series, so I was gridded on the last row, however I managed to get a good start and move up rather quickly. All was going well and I was with the leading seniors until we got to the first sand section - by this point we had already started catching the tail end of the vets. I didn’t quite get this right and didn’t manage to get through them as smoothly as the others and lost a couple of places.

After the first lap mayhem, the race settled down a bit and I managed to find a good rhythm and started catching back some of the places I had lost despite not being able to get my easiest gear. This was most definitely needed up the steep climbs but I put my running legs to good use trying to minimise time lost to those able to ride.

As a whole I’m happy with this race and its always fun to mix things up during winter training. I finished 5th senior which was a little bit better than I was expecting. All in all a fun day out!

Kim Baptista