Amesbury Cross - 6th!

Much to my surprise I had a good start. I figured if you can’t be in the first row the next best alternative is to be behind Mo, Rebecca, or Amy – and fortunately I was behind Amy, who of course, bolted off the line! Unfortunately good starts are only that if you can’t maintain your position! Usually the middle of the race is where I become unraveled, but in this case, I was able to focus on maintaining an effort without exploding and just riding as smoothly as possible, minimizing mistakes – and only two riders passed me. So that’s progress!

But this race definitely reinforced two things – (1) look where you want the bike to go and (2) think thoughts where you want the bike to go - not where you don’t want the bike to go! The first time I approached the off camber section (after the fence) I was going entirely too fast and nearly wound up getting wrapped up in the tape. All I could think was “oh my God, don’t roll down the hill, don’t get caught in the tape…” (ok, there was no mention of God, just an expletive)…but my point is, if you’re into mental narration, better to say something along the lines of “take the corner smoothly, stay to the right, follow the high line”…and chances are much higher that disaster will be averted and friends with cameras (ie Geoff Martin) won’t have an opportunity to capture a Kodak moment! :-)

Mo

Amy

Rebecca