Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

My day in photos - Fife Coastal Path Shell Bay to Crail and home.

SXC Round 3 - Comrie Croft

When we visited the Hairy Coo trails in February the sun was shining and the trails were dry and loose – it was glorious if a little cold. Fast forward to the end of May and the third round of the Scottish XC and when there should have been blue skies it was overcast, muddy and blowing a gale! Seeing the rain on our short drive over (what a luxury to only be 1.5 hours away from an event venue) Chris switched the tyres from his bike onto mine. Saving his legs for the Trans Germany this week he didn’t need traction for his lap with me before the race.

The top of the Hairy Coo trail back in February

The course was most of the Hairy Coo trail with some added grass switchbacks and a couple of tricky sections through the trees at the bottom of the hill. For someone who usually hates cycling across grass the switchbacks were a surprisingly welcome addition; providing a break from the long dirt track climb. Once you did reach the top the technical descent had a burn crossing, a drop, and some rattley rocky runs. In the mud I don’t think anyone stayed on their bike 100% of the time. My spectacular off was in practice when a rock slab I had easily cut the corner on when riding in the dry was too slippy in the wet - good time to try out my tuck and roll skills.

The drop before it got slippy

I was the only pre entry in the Elite women’s race so was happy to see Lee Craigie (TORQ Performace) and a couple of other riders for the Elite/Expert race. As the race started my aim was to try and stick with Lee for as long as possible but despite getting the hole shot, once she got going on the hill there was no chance I was going to stick on her wheel. Another rider was also climbing faster than I could manage but on a hill that steep you just have to find your pace and stick with it. A couple of slippy moments on the first climb and I was tucked in behind Kim Craigie and Ann Murray who set a nice pace and were good wheels to follow. Not for long though; the gradient of the final section of climb seemed to suit me more and I passed Kim but could only get past Ann on the drop where I decided to take the B line which appeared to be faster. Once past I put my head down and motored along.

On lap 2 I could see that I was gaining on the lass in second on the descent, although she was still climbing better than me. After a few encouraging words from Chris I caught her on a grassy downhill section and passed by jumping off and running in the mud through the trees. Game on, now I just needed to minimise her advantage on the climb. She caught me on the grass switchbacks and sat in behind, before passing once we hit the wider track. I knew I could not climb any faster so had to let her go but pushed as hard as I could to keep the gap as small as possible. Through the top singletrack section I managed to get back on her wheel and then past again just before we hit the descent. Telling myself to be smooth and safe I negotiated down the hill before (and not too soon as I had started cramping) the last little climb to the finish. Having not seen Lee after the first climb I was second – but the gap is shrinking and for me it is a great improvement.

The Elite Women's Podium

Thanks as always to Chris Pedder for cheering and bottling and AWCycles.co.uk and Giant for the perfect bike.

5 lessons

I could write a standard race report from this weekend’s Scottish XC race at Kirroughtree but it’d probably just end being either a boring and dispassionate narration of the race, or a list of excuses as to why I was 20 minutes off the pace. But for 2011 I am trying to think about races in a different way. I have never been very good at analysing my racing – I tend to either ignore errors and tell a positive story no matter what, or collapse into a depressed stupor about how badly I am doing. So... here is my attempt at avoiding these traps. 5 things I am taking away from the race.

1.      You can eat too many carbs!

Because we had to set off at 6am in order to get to Kirroughtree in time to pre-ride and race we had 2 breakfasts – one before we left and one at the venue when we arrived at 9.30. I then pre-rode the course (boy was I glad of my full gore-tex outfit given the rain of the previous night) and had some energy chews. After a less than auspicious start but a good first lap I started to feel really full. I have never been very good at drinking enough during races, so knowing this was going to be a long race I conciously guzzled energy drink down on every climb. However I clearly took in too much carbohydrate and my stomach was unable to do anything about it. It’s not the first time I’ve done this, but it’s normally a 12/24 hour race problem and I just stop drinking energy drink and take all my carbs in gel/bar form. Unfortunately on this occasion there was no water in the pits and I was getting cramp from all the climbing and running (well walking, I need to do some running training) through one hideously muddy section, so had no choice but to keep on drinking. All I could do was stop taking gels and hope I felt better as the race went on. So, lesson to take away from this, have some High5 zero (no carbs) in the pits as well as standard High5 and High5+. Hopefully this would help with the cramps too.

2.      Steep and techy – less brakes = more control.

Rocky descent on the Fife coastal path near Elie - the scene of one of my attacks of nerves!

Recently I’ve been struggling. When training on the MTB with Chris I often get to certain sections of trail which rationally I know I can ride, and have ridden harder sections in the past, but something clicks and I just cannot make myself go over the edge. It’s all in my head and I’m freaking out. This weekend I didn’t give myself any options I just rode my bike. It felt great, natural and I realised I’ve simply been worrying too much. You just need to let go of the brakes and let the bike do its thing. I fell off a few times on the slippy steep descents and it was uncomfortable, I’m a bit scratched up, but didn’t really hurt and I know that if you hang off the back of the saddle enough you can’t go far wrong anyway. Lesson #2 – I can ride steep stuff and if I do fall off I know how to stop myself getting injured. It’s all about that safety position.

3.      Start fast, get faster.

There aren’t many photos around of the Kirroughtree race but I do have a video Chris took of the women’s start. Looking at this video I realised quite how slow I am out of the blocks (I’m the one in the yellow and blue). This is relatively new, a couple of years ago I used to storm off and get the hole shot without much problem. Last year however in my first elite national race I was racing with new pedals, missed one off the start and was immediately 100 metres behind the rest of the girls. From then on at every race I was always 100m off the back. I now think it was probably a confidence thing and over the winter I did a bit of practising clipping in and getting up and going. I plan to keep doing this when I’m out riding my mountain bike. The video shows me in the pack, but I missed the split and didn’t make the leading group so plenty of work to do. Not such a problem in hilly Scottish races but for the BMBS this is much more crucial.

SXC MTB Kirroughtree 2011 from Rachel Fenton on Vimeo.

4.      Motivation brings determination (and a faster lap!).

As I came round to start my final lap Chris said “If you want some company there’s a rider 20s ahead”. I wasn’t sure how helpful this was, as far as I was concerned I couldn’t go any faster up the hill than I was. However, when I started to see another rider up ahead I realised I had nearly made up that 20 seconds in the first quarter of a lap. Once I came up behind her I remembered the lesson I’ve always been taught about overtaking: if you are going to do it, go full gas and make sure the rider you are overtaking thinks you are finding it easy. So I gathered myself, paused for a minute and went for it as hard as I could. I thought I’d have to stop after I was out of sight but I kept going harder than I thought I could for longer than I thought I could. Yes, I was going faster on the steep descents so I slid off, but I simply got back on again and rode it like I stole it for the rest of the lap to make sure I didn’t get overtaken again. Thus I now realise that I could definitely have gone harder for my middle 2 laps. It might hurt more but I could do it and did on that last lap. Time to stop being a pansy! As the saying goes “pain is temporary, failure lasts forever”.

5.      Lovin’ them hills.

SXC courses are fab and are clearly going to be hilly - not something I felt very positive about last year. But... I’ve been doing the right training and it feels good to be climbing okay. I remember what it feels like to be riding uphill hard and my Giant Anthem is the perfect machine for the job. Careful set-up and comparison with my usual training bikes, as well as the shorter cranks that Giant kindly supplied with my bike mean that I’ve managed to get the perfect position (I no longer feel like I'm pedalling a reclining bicycle). The suspension is also adjustable enough that it doesn’t sag loads whilst climbing but soaks up the bumps in the trail and allows for speedy descending.

And my final conclusion? It really is worth thinking about the positives and negatives of a race. I already feel inspired to work on my weaknesses and to try and get the most from my training and racing. I’d advise anyone to make this an exercise that follows every race.

If anyone is actually interested - I was 4th Elite behind Lee Craigie (Torq Performance), Elke Schmidt and Leslie Ingram. I'm actually quite pleased with that result especially given everything I've been thinking about!