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After a frustrating summer of injuries I set myself a goal of doing my best at the Cross Duathlon Championships
at Sherwood Pines Nottingham. Sanctioned by British Triathlon this was a full on national title race and
would resurrect the season for me.

Training had gone well in the lead up and I was feeling strong, but with no racing since July it is near on impossible
to predict how things would go. I arrived early even though I was to go in the second of two wave starts.
There was a good turn out of some 300+ competitors and the conditions were getting worse by the minute.
The first wave struggled with muddy conditions from the torrential rain the day before and there were some
very muddy competitors coming through transition.

Time came for my start and the heavens had been open for some time now, it was going to be cold, wet, muddy,
filthy fun! Just how I like it. I had decided to just go from the gun and see how I felt.
Bang! we’re off! I took the lead and pretty much buried myself for the first couple of kms, I could hear some
feet behind me but I didn’t look round. By the time we hit 4km with the last 1km to transition, I allowed myself
a glance behind. whoop, whoop there was only Louise Fox (professional Xterra racer) and a massive gap to the
next runner.

Louise and I came into transition together but I struggled with cold hands to do my helmet up and she popped
out in front of me. I caught her within 500m and put the hammer down on the first of two 10km laps. By the
end of lap one I had a good lead, but I wasn’t going to get caught now. I pushed again and came into transition
for the final run on my own. The last 3.6km hurt, I mean hurt a lot! You never know if someone is going to
come from nowhere or if you will just blow up, but I wasn’t going to loose this one.
I crossed the line elated and won by some 3 minutes. I was cold, tired, black with mud and could hardly see for
grit in my eyes, but oh so happy.

National Champion, it has a nice ring to it.

Thanks to all my sponsors: Canyon, Compressport, Schwalbe, Inov-8, Dorset Cereals, Maloja, Z3R0D, OSMO
and Honey Stinger. Big thanks go to Rotor Components and the new REX 1.1 MTB cranks with QX1 single
ring, the difference these make is phenomenal and saves you legs for the run.

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