It’s race time again! I’ve not raced for a few months now and have missed it – I was ill with flu for the Autumn XC race, so raring to go for this one. The weather forecast was pretty grim in the build up, so I was preparing for very wet! The twist for Brass Monkeys is that you choose your race length (by time, either 2, 3 or 4 hours) and then you have to complete as many laps as you can within that time. If you don’t get back before the cut off that lap doesn’t count – that adds some jeopardy! I was in the 2 hour category – I’m not so good at lasting 4 hours at race pace!
The plan was that I had company this time, but for various reasons I ended up on my own, except that is until I saw Daniel Robson (part Redhill CC, part Loughborough Uni) on the start line. Although it rained on my journey to Deepcut, it had stopped by the time we were ready to go and it was surprisingly mild and not too muddy.
Lap 1 was fast! I struggled with my breathing, having recently had Bronchitis and that limited me, but I settled in to the amazing singletrack heavy course. I love riding at Porridgepot hill anyway, and this 5 mile lap definitely found the best trails. There were 76 in my category, and several other categories starting at the same time, so loads of people on track, which sometimes caused jams, but I got round in under 30 mins – so if I could keep that up I was on for 4 laps, just!
Laps 2 and 3 the field spread out significantly and although I was too hot and struggled on the climbs with my lungs I was pretty consistent on times and crossed the line at the end of lap 3 with 32 mins to go, so decided that I had to go for the 4th lap. It certainly focuses the effort when you’re close to the cut off and the lap might not count if you are slow! I managed to complete it with 3 mins to spare and finished 12th out of 76, so I was very happy with that!
Round 2 is on the 8th Jan – I’d love to have some company so if anyone is interested it’s great fun!
Andrew Lewis