There are lots of people with demons from the Dalby World Cup track. It's not as hard as it looks (I'm told) but I still have trouble psyching myself up to ride the two major technical sections. When we visited last weekend for the second round of the BMBS I actually enjoyed the course a lot more than I have done previously. I managed to ride up a big rock slab - which DEFINITELY looks a lot scarier than it actually is and did all the drops (bar worry gill which fills me with dread). I am definitely going to try and find some time before next year to go back and work my feeble brain around the final two sections. Chris and I walked them this time looking carefully and I think with a bit more time (and no race) I could quite enjoy them.
Unfortunately the race didn't go so well. I had a great start - the main aim of the day for me and was in the pack. I flew down the Worry Gill gully with its loose rocks hardly noticable on my lovely Giant Anthem. However I got a bit over excited climbing up out from Medusa's drop and I managed to go so far into the red I started having a bit of an asthma attack. My inhalor was a help but seems to have fallen out of my pocket heading back into the arena so when the wheezing started again I was stuck. I did another lap but every time I pushed on the wheezing started again so it wasn't really a race as such. I stopped after 2 laps and sat in the feed zone recovering and watching the excitement. I was most pleased to see Mel Alexander (XCRacer.com) properly overcoming her Dalby demons to finish 6th and Maxine Filby (Baines Racing) did an awesome ride to finish 8th.
Switching into support mode I was pleased to see the rest of the AWCycles team ride strong races - the elite men all in the top 30, Chris 23rd in the Expert race and Mart Hutt and Steve Jones 3rd and 30th respectively in the Veterans race.
I even had time to take a couple of photos of the boys at the finish. So now I need a new inhalor before the SXC at Aberfoyle this Sunday and an asthma check to see what's actually going on next week.
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