15^th April 2008

Well, just back from the first round of the nationals at Thetford and what a weekend it was. It’s so nice to be back on the race scene after a year out with my illness.

In practice on Friday the course was dry and fast and the weather was sunny but late afternoon the heavens opened, so I got soaked.

On race day which is on Saturday for the nationals, the sun was back out and the course was in good condition with only a few areas where it stayed very muddy. So the pace was fast which meant our laps got put up from 4 to 5 taking just under half an hour per lap. With Thetford being a flat and fast course if your form was not 100% it meant you were in for a hard day at the office and for me that was the case.

At the start of my race I got an OK start but then started to struggle a little as my second wind did not kick in and was like that for most of my first lap with my legs screaming out to stop, on my second lap I started to feel a lot better and a bit more relaxed so I was able to push a little harder and was starting to feel really good, but towards the back end of the race I started to fade and fall back but with this being my first major race back I’m still not back to full race fitness and lacking a bit of speed and strength, but with the help of my coach Andy Wadsworth of Pro Fitness as the season goes on that will start to come back. And my results will be better than my 39th at the weekend. Roll on my next race, which I’m planning to do over the weekend of 20th April, in the Exodus series at Deepcut, Surrey.