Here, There and Everywhere

Its been a busy few months of Winter training spread between Scotland and Spain. Apart from the snow its been going well with the occasional cross country run race thrown into the mix to keep me sharp. The big cross country of the year takes place with the Scottish National 12k at Falkirk. The aim is a top 15 however having never raced over the distance before its a bit of a venture into the unknown.

With a 12k cross country on the Saturday and the 3rd Reliability ride of the ride on the Sunday its looking to be a hard weekend of work. The local Reliability rides/races are always a shock to me especially when a few of the local Endura riders turn up to stretch their legs and to make the rest of us suffer. I spent a great deal of time last weekend just trying to hold the wheel. The rain and the muddy roads never lightens my mood either and it was a miserable few hours in the hurt box. Getting fit though and and looking forward to some sun.

Mull

Well, the final two races of the SCX season were crackers. I'd never been to Mull before, and wish that there had been more time to take in the island, and do the races - monday off work next year (and maybe get a weekend babysitter?)

I wouldn't recommend an overnight stay in the carpark in Tobermory though - you can't escape the boy racers, even on a small island!

The car park at Glengorm Castle was much better, if darker!

Although the field was small, it was high quality, as were the courses. Saturday had some tough muddy sections - a long run up to the castle, and climbs which became runs as the bikes got progressively clogged. My top 3 place overall was never going to last long, as JFM, Dan Whitehead and Davie Lines added more races to their tally, but I knew if I could beat Greig Walker both days (not an easy proposition), that 5th place was possible. As expected Greig and myself were locked together in the early laps, before a couple of mistakes and clogged gears allowed me to open up a gap, and press on to the finish - 1 down, 1 to go!

Sunday was a much faster affair, no running except the hurdles (unless your name is Hardie or Lines), but a long, tough climb up to the top of the course. The frozen mud and patchy ice kept you on your toes though (and had me on my backside on lap 1). After a strong 1st half lap, I was sitting 3rd or 4th, and feeling comfortable with the leaders, when I got on the power a bit early on joining to tarmac, and came down. Although I was back up quickly, that put me back in Greig's reach - and Santa soon overhauled me, and built up a 15 second lead. Keeping him in sight helped the motivation, and a wardrobe incident for Greig (cue rapid removal and discarding of Santa over trousers) put us back together. I attacked with 3 to go, and managed to build the magic 10 seconds gap straight away, and hang on to 5th place. Job done. And I beat all the guys in fancy dress - what a hero!

I'm probably not going to ride the Cyclists - v - Harriers this year, think I've used up my competitive credits! The conditions look great for cyclists again this year though, so hopefully Gareth can snatch the win.

So, some time to take it easy, and have fun riding bikes again before thinking about racing again.

Neil Walker

End of Season Blues

Its been an up and down season of Cyclocross this year. A huge up in numbers, quality of races and courses and general good fun, and some downs with cancelled races due to construction, councils and the weather.

Walkers Cycling Club have had superb representation, and excellent results this year, with up to 15 riders at some rounds, and never fewer than 8, and podiums for established riders, and points scores for newbies!

Having to cancel the Championships at Irvine was a blow to the end of season, and has left me struggling with motivation as the final two races on Mull rapidly approach. Getting out on the MTB in the snow has been a good antidote to that though, and hopefully pulling on a skinsuit, pinning on a number, and being called to the starting grid will get me back in the mood on Saturday!

CXross Country - It Hurts

So with the triathlon season being over (at least in this hemisphere) it's time to put string up the spikes and hit the cross country scene. The last two weekends has been the east district relay champs and an east district league event.

The two key things of cross country- no matter what the weather is one must only wear shorts and vest; any other attire will be met with chuckles and murmurs of you being soft. That and when the gun goes you run as fast as you can, too hard, but everyone does it so you go along with it, the winner is the one who slows down the most and makes it round without their legs collapsing charging down the hills; all in shorts and a vest.

However it's all good fun and it gives me something to focus on until the temperature reaches an acceptable weather to dawn a tri suit again.

20th and a Crash

Well that's another race season over with and as always there were some highs (9^th at Euro Champs) and there were lows. Sadly there was no spectacular end of my season as I finished 20^th at World Champs which was disappointed and followed it up with crashing out of National Champs as my front tyre blew half way round a corner. On the plus side it meant my season end rest began 40minutes sooner than anticipated. The negative side was spending the next several days limping around.

So after a week of lazing around the house doing as little as possible reflecting on what I have learnt and coming up with master plans on how I am going to get better it's now time to get back on with the job. There's one thing I know for sure: Its dam difficult to get to the top.

European Championships

Porto was the venue for the 23 and under European Championships this year which I travelled out to last weekend as part of the Great Britain squad. It was my 2^nd major championships and after the disappointment out in Australia last year I was looking to finally post a good result at championship level.

It was a tough race from start to finish with a rough sea swim followed by 8 laps of 5k on the bike which had 3 significant climbs on each lap along with two u-turns to split things up. By the end of the bike leg an elite group of 15 of us had escaped from the main bunch and held a 2minute lead going into the run so it was up to us to battle it out for the top 10. Sadly my legs weren't a match to some of the front runners but I was able to hold on to 9^th.

Not the medal I ultimately wanted but a top 10 result is still a big step forward for me. I still have one year left though to make it happen.

So next up is the World 23 and under champs on the 11^th in Budapest where another top10 will be the first priority. If I achieve that then who knows where I will end up.....

The London Triathlon

It was my third attempt at the London Triathlon which is known as the World's biggest triathlon with 13,000 participants including an elite field of 70. Last year I finished 8^th and was hoping to do similar if not better this year. I was pretty tired going into the race with no real taper for the two big races of the year European and World Champs coming up soon. However when you're on the start line you give it everything.

The swim was pretty carnage with too big a field being squeezed in too small a starting line. My first 300 was pretty terrible and got worse when I got a punch to the face which has left me with a bruised nose. I made my way through the field on the rest of the swim to leave 6^th.

The bike leg started pretty aggressively but 10ks into the bike section some of the top guys started staring at each other and refused to work which meant we swelled up to a pack of 30. After some gentle spinning around I managed to get off the front with 5ks to go and get a 20second gap on the peloton going onto the run.

I never really had the run legs. It started badly and there was only a slight improvement throughout the run. I managed to get round in 9^th which kept me just inside the money places. A good workout.

Next up is Europeans in 3 weeks and Worlds 2 weeks after that.