Race 13: MTBO Sprint National Championship, 08/05/2011

I was doing really well in the sprint prologue, so much so that I thought I'd try and plan ahead a few so I could finally step it up a notch. Rubbish idea! When I looked back up I took the next left like I was supposed to but... It seems I might have gone further than I thought whilst planning as I ended up lost! I was pretty annoyed because it was going just fine before I got overly confident! I wasted 11 mins in a half hour race and so rushed around the remainder of the course. The rest went well, I even took short cuts (it was allowed today) Strangely I wasn't last at all but unsurprisingly I got in the B final!

The final was probably a harder route, it went into a complicated bunker area and also I took a shortcut through some undergrowth where the paths didn't quite meet. It was good. I got a little confused at the spectator control. I drew a blank when I looked down at the map again, had to work out where I'd just been, where was next, it happened 3 more times, I was getting really frustrated! I needed my 3M tabs to stick on but didn't bring any. Finally got past it and rushed the last couple of controls to finish 2nd.

John H, the BMBO chairman, has given me some most excellent advice on how to get good at the map reading part, which is my weakness. I'm on it already :-)

Sprint Prologue

Sprint Final