Illinbah

Lets start by saying, it didnt go to plan. My preperation was terrible, I hurt my knee, i got sick 2 weeks before and I had to do alot of school work. I was feeling pretty good until I got sick and since ive just felt weak and empty. It didnt help that we drove there from canberra in a day and a half which was pretty full on. The track was probably the best track Ive ever raced, realy steep climb and a steep gripy descent. After my practise laps I knew i could handle the track very well I just needed somthing extra to get me up that climb that I would usualy roll up easily. Race day was warm humid, and the track was in good condition, damp but not wet, just perfect. However, an hour before my race the anouncer says, theres a huge storm coming over from the other side of the hill. We looked over and saw this huge black cloud coming over the hill. We decided that it will probbaly come a bit later but we put mud tyres on just incase. I went back to the tent to grab my ipod for my warm up. As i was getting out of the tent it started to get realy windy and started raining (within seconds). I decided not to take the ipod incae it got soaked. I started my musicless warm up and the rain started to realy come down. I thought I should go make sure the race is still on, I went down to the event hub and everyone was trying to stay dry under a tent which was blowing away. I warmed up by back pedaling under the CORC tent. it was delayed by 30 mins but we raced. The rain had stoped but that made no difference, the track would be horribly muddy (especialy since Elite had done 2 laps in the rain). I got a shit house start to what can only be described as a shit fight. We all just slid around fall over trying to get into our positions. I got held back on the first climb as there wernt many passing opertunities. I managed to catch and pass a few guys at the start of the second lap. However everything turned to shit on the start of the climb when I got chain suck. this persisted for every climb for the rest of the race. By the last race it was so bad that it was quicker to run/walk up the hill rather than constantly get of and try and fix my mangled chain. The main descent was full on aswell. It was going straight down the steeest part of the hill and was increadibly muddy. I ended up walking the corners at the bottom of it. I ended up in a very very disapointing 10th place. I know i could have beaten the four in front of me if I had had not problems, and mabey a few more. The drive home gave me alot of time to think about what had gone wrong and weather I would have done as well as I would have like if I had had not problems or if it was dry. Ive never felt so shit after a race.

My plan now is to try and get as fast as I can for national champs. If I do well I will try and race Buller and Ocianas. If Im just not on the pase, then I will consentrate on becoming a good marathon rider, something I would persue later anyway.

In the short term, Im going to keep training and race the road and dirt crits which are both good training.

Catchya