So, It was finally time for the first national of the year. This would see us heading back to Nant Gwrtheyrn.
Saturday mornings track walk revealed a fast, and relatively dry track compared to last time. It was taped a bit differently to allow for some more dangerous, yet much faster lines at the top with the bottom being pretty much the same. I didn't get my first run in until 12 which is pretty late for me, but I was feeling super confident about the whole thing having raced there a few weeks ago.
Race day rolled around and it was raining and had been for most of the night, I still didn't bother walking the track though, I figured it would be exactly the same as it was last time I was here...and it was. I only did one practice run in the morning and It felt SO much faster then it did in the dry, If anything there was more grip in the wet. Unfortunately someone broke their hip in their seeding run which then delayed everything causing them to cancel seeding and go straight to race runs. About 7 hours after my practice run It was time for my race run. I was feeling confident and knew what I had to do.
Things started off well until something went wrong somewhere and my cranks jammed, which was a massive pain in the arse at the top of the track where you really need to keep your pedals above the rocks. I also couldn’t really hit any of the harder/quicker lines without clipping my pedals everywhere, so I took the safer bet. Having got to the bottom sprint I gave the cranks a good kick and managed to get things moving, however the only gear I could get to work was 1st... not ideal. Not being able to pedal at the top and then not having a hard enough gear at the bottom pretty much put me out of the running.
I'm so disappointed with my result as it's a track that I feel I could have done really well on, but that's racing I guess.
