After a looooong day, getting up at 2.30am, driving, flying, driving, bike building to be honest I just wanted to go to bed but no, 9.15pm was the start for the first race of the mtbo camp cup. It was a sprint around the town of Fjerritslev, taking in the edges of the town and adjacent woods as well as the complex gridded town center. It was also getting cold, as soon as the sun set the temperature fell away causing lots of phaffing as to what to wear!
I queued up to get an early start and got off with a little daylight still remaining at about 9.30. I rode smoothly through the first 4 controls except for 1 wobble trying to find a track which wasnt someones from drive but then tried to be clever, refolding the map whilst riding along. Big mistake, I ended up getting ahead of myself and riding off down a parallel road. It didn’t feel right and I quickly relocated but I then compounded the error by retracing my steps when there was a quicker way to the control from where I relocated. (GPS shows I lost 2 mins 20 secs – huge in sprint racing)
It was a great race and I am typing this now totally awake – that’s what adrenaline and exercise does for you! Competitors who did it in the daylight have 15 mins added to their time and I am not sure how the results were stacking when I finished but I was about 6.5 mins down on the leader at the time…..
I’ve used quick-route to show my speed over the ground as well as my route. It shows a small mistake near #3, the biggy on the way to #5 and the one at #17, but also shows some red in the town. This I think is mainly from having to stop to get my Emit touch free close enough to punch when it was on the wrong side from my right wrist but you can also see some yellow where I am not able to ride flat out while navigating.
A great start to the week – Tomorrow I am racing at midday, bring it on! #endureandenjoy365
