Today was one of those days where I just didn’t get it right. Round one of the South Island XC Cup was in Christchurch on a great course with heaps of fun switch backs and rollers. It was a hot day out racing though, which stuffed my body up. I tried to keep pouring liquids into my body to stop it from cooking (like it did last year at Timaru), I must have over done it or something because when I was on lap 3 I couldn’t even keep water down so that was the end of anything going in. Me and Amy were having a good old battle once my goose was cooked she busted off ahead. I was hanging out for the finish when on my last lap (number 5) I broke my chain. I ran and pumped my way to the finish as the rest of the field passed me.
That’s how it goes; the chain didn’t break because of my ruthless power rather because all the running gear on my bike was past worn out. I am getting hold of my new bike on Tuesday and was hoping like mad my bike would hang in there for this last race. Sometimes hope just doesn’t cut it. Oh well it was a good hard day training at least. I will keep testing out some different drink mixes and goos until I can find something that works.
Amy Laird took out the Elite Woman’s title today with a stellar performance on her home track. Amy has fully switched codes for this year getting stuck into cross country and selling her DH bike. The Elite Men’s field was dominated by Brendon Sharratt with young Anton Cooper not far behind.
The next XC round of the SI cup is in Dunedin next Saturday. It will be held back in Bathoons gully on another great track! I’ll try again there and see if I can deal to a few hick ups, to make sure I am absolutely positively sorted by the time Nationals rocks around – that’s the big one!
Thats the attitude Sam. Bad race out of the way and time to get faster with each race now on.