This was the last of the Mud Sweat & Gears race of the warm up series (XC) and after last weeks performance I wanted to make it a good one. The only problem came when I pre-rode the course and it was very, very, very, flat and simple; it even had tarmac.

Luckily the course planners had included 3 ditches to add a little excitement to the course which was 2.5 miles in length with a huge 20 metres vertical climbing a lap! So to summarize everything I wanted from a XC lap was non existent!

Despite the course not favouring me I rode at quite consistent pace throughout which actually worked surprisingly well as the race started at a slower pace than the previous rounds.

The only problem I had was when I dropped my bottle with my gel taped to it - don't ask me how! Despite doing this on the first lap I made the decision to go thirsty, which was admittedly a wrong one as i suffered later on in the race.

In the end I came 2nd in the youth category and 3rd or 4th overall if you include the mens. So all in all a decent result, I was 2 minutes down on the winner (Lewis Parker of TROG). However I think Lewis is a year older than me so I'm not too bothered. Will Kearse also put a good ride in coming 3rd in the youth category and he came 1st overall in the series so well done to him.

Ollie