It was all innocent enough. I decided that for the first club race of the year I would downgrade myself from ‘C’ to ‘D’ grade. Now it’s not like I’m being a shark or anything. In C grade, I languish at the back of the pack for three laps and rarely see anyone during the race, except for the lead A, and sometimes B, grade riders yelling ‘rider!’ as they sweep past at breakneck speed, leaving me to eat their dust.
Anyway, there were a couple of reasons for my decision. Firstly, time was a factor. I had a prior engagement in the afternoon and needed to be home in time to clean up and go so wanted to be home by midday. D grade’s two laps allowed me to race for around an hour I thought and be home in time. Secondly, I didn’t think my form was up to the three laps of C grade this time around. Maybe next round I would move back up, but honestly, I never trouble the leaders, never have, so I’d go out and race against myself like I normally do and everything would be cool.
Well, yesterday’s race re-instilled in me how much fun XC racing can be. Yeah, fun! I had such a blast racing D grade yesterday that I’ll definitely be back for more at the next round. I spent the entire two laps dicing with another couple of guys. One I managed to drop. Another managed to drop me, but in the end I was only a few seconds behind Ryan. It was great fun, passing each other. I was stronger technically and would catch up with him on the downhill and technical sections, but being younger and lighter, he would have my measure on the uphills. So we sliced and diced that way the whole race until the final uphill section where he got enough of a gap on me to see it through to the finish. That wasn’t it for me though as there was a guy coming up fast behind me but I managed to hold him off at the finish.
What this has done though is reignited my excitement for XC racing, even if it’s not for very long. It’s still fun. The extra lap is definitely a slog and I’m shattered after three laps, but I have enough in the tank to still be coherent instead of being a sloth for the rest of the day as my body struggles to recover…
What’s interesting though is that apparently I will have to go back up to C grade after the next round or my points will be lost. Mmmm…. I think I will move back up to C grade when I win a round in D grade. Not impossible. I mean, I came 7th yesterday out of 24 riders and was less than a minute-and-a-half behind the winner. I think I know where I can make that up, and I know which areas of my riding I need to work on to get there, but for now I’m going to bask in the afterglow of rediscovering my love of racing again…
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