Talent and Less Talent

What a brilliant day. It was a testing day for young riders which was being run by our Talent coaches and supported by my team. It's always nice to see talented young riders enjoying their sport and even better seeing coaches like Tim, Monica, Mark, Rob et al. being such a positive influence to them.

On a sadder note, my colleague Andrea announced her resignation today as she's off to a new job. I had a wee bit of a quivering lip as I think she's great and will really miss her.

After work Perez and I headed to Stalybridge to do a 10km race, the Millbrook Monster. It was great that there was a wee coffee van at registration so I fuelled up on a rather good espresso. Rocket fuel would have been better for what lay ahead.

After a warm-up, we lined up on the start with around 200 other, mainly lean, small, fit looking people. Although the 1st few km were hard going and uphill, I was holding my own, feeling comfortable and passing more people than were passing me. Then the trail narrowed into a rock strewn path which required quick feet. I have slow feet. Although physically within myself, I was struggling as it got more technical.

The summit was at almost exactly the 5km mark and it had taken me over 30 mins to get there. The next km wasn't too bad but it then we hit a steep road section and my knees started to object. I backed off big time and was frustrated that I was being passed by people that were much less physically fit than me. It was great to hit a flat section and I gained quite a few places that I had previously lost.

We then hit more twisty up-and-down trails, crossing narrow bridges and slippery sections. At 1km to go, there was a vicious set of steps to negotiate and the legs turned to jelly. I kicked hard and ran the final section as hard as I could, dropping a guy who I'd been having a ding dong with. He was left way behind. I crossed the line being cheered and clapped. It was a brill atmosphere and one of the friendliest races I've ever done. 57 mins was much slower than I'd expected having done a 20 min 5km in an Aquathlon a few weeks before. But I'd had such fun and it had been a real challenge. What was better was we all got a free chip barm from the local chippy....lovely crispy chippy chips, my first in years!