London Cross League Team Champs - Gt Walstead School -Sunday 10th February 2013

The last fixture of the 2012/13 cyclocross season was held at Great Walstead School near Haywards Heath. Dave Kiely and Hannah Ormesher buddied up on the day and raced in team 'ING with Rain Innit' with a mystery chap called Steve Brown (we didn't know what he looked like) and another guy who we never did even get to know the name of. The team name was largely inspired by the dismal conditions which made us all wonder why the hell we were outside, let alone racing. After all we'd made an 80 mile trek for the pleasure. Crazy? I think so. It was very cold and raining a constant drizzle which would turn to snow later that afternoon on the drive home. I chose the coldest and miserablist day of the season to debut the new long sleeve NR skinsuit and Dave, more sensibly, ditched his habitual skinsuited attire in favour of layers and a long sleeve jersey.

We all lined up for gridding for the hour long Seniors/Juniors/Vets/Women combined race and were drenched to the skin before we even got going. There was a surprisingly big field given the conditions but the 'last race of the season' bug had us in its grips. Gridding was different to normal and similar to the Eastern Team Championship event the week before in that they tried to spread out teammates evenly in the field. This resulted in Dave and I lingering at the back and hoping out other ING WRI representatives had made their way closer to the front. Despite initial hesitation from the organisers the race started on open field which was pretty soggy. There was a small stream crossing which bottlenecked the masses and the initial start of the race rush was a bit frustrated by riders up ahead slipping around in the mud. About 10 minutes in the field had thinned out enough to get down to some less shovey/wheel clippy racing. 

The rest of the course was in forest and the decision was made to cut out the field section for the subsequent laps and keep the course in the woods. It was by far the most mud laden racing we have experienced. Some parts were unrideable with deep and sticky gloop slowing your progress and a lot of sections were best run on foot. There were tree roots hiding in the thick mud which made their presence felt to your wrists. Streams of mud formed integral parts of the course and added to the general fun. There seemed to be endless amounts of gradual climbs with the occasional strength sapper and a few sharpish descents which were slip slidey and tricky with mud caked brakes, even I struggled with disc brakes. There were sharp corners aplenty on some difficult off camber terrain. Riders were falling off all over the place pretty spectacularly with hoods being bent out of shape and a few of those who'd not removed their bottle cages broke them. There's not really a lot more to say of the course as the mud made it all seem the same, it was unrelenting and wherever you were on the course you were turning your smallest gear like you pushing something massive and trying your best to stay upright.

Dave got off to a good start for the team and soon lost touch with me. He found himself coping better on the downhill sections of the course and managed to make up places here. He said this race was the closest he's come to throwing in the towel and found it hard on the legs but he didn't want to let his teammates and the infamous Steve down! Plus he'd just got his bike back from the shop and having spent a fortune repairing his shifter decided the last race of the CX calendar had to be seen through. He found it amazing how so much effort got him the lofty position of 64th of 120. Dave thought the atmosphere and all the people were great, particularly the signing on ladies and the tea ladies who thought he was winking at them when he had grit in his eye (honest).

 At the start of the race I was unaware how many women had lined up around me but thought it was around 9 or 10. With the last chance of the season to snatch a few more national ranking points I was keen to finish top five. Early on I managed to pass a handful of women and I only knew of a Ritte Cyclelab girl ahead of me but couldn't be sure there weren't others. Most of the race was spent playing cat-and-mouse with a couple of guys who were better at running with the bike. I would catch them up on the sloggy rideable hills, then they would pass me again on the sections which had to be run on foot. I kept checking over my shoulder for a Team Scott Contessa rider I knew was gaining on me and did my best to hold her off. On the penultimate lap she came past me and I couldn't close the gap. I finished the race well in the red and a bit spacey but was pleased with my efforts. I had to wait until the following day for the results to find I came 86th, third placed of 10 women - my best result yet - and finished my CX season on a high. I was also very happy to discover 10 women had raced, not 9, which meant I could claim 12 national ranking points (as opposed to 3 if under 10 women race). This meant I ended the 2012/13 season by climbing 8 places to 52nd place nationally. Braving the cold, rain and mud was worth it. We were happy to discover our mystery bloke Steve came 35th and our other anonymous rider must have done pretty well as we finished 15th placed team of 32 overall. 

It was particularly apt that the U12's race of the day was won in a deluge by a kid called Noah. Joe got his leg run over after crashing on the first lap but battled bravely on in the horrid conditions. He had an impressive bruise on said joint, telling Dad in the car it only hurt when he moved it or kept it still! Joe finished the race in a commendable 10th place of 46 riders. It was hard to watch the kids race as so many of them were in tears because they had fallen off, were covered in mud, soaked through and freezing cold. HQ was a fair trek from the course and in the time we'd spent racing the path had turned to a full on river. We sat down in HQ afterwards in a state nearing hypothermia, feeling pretty beat up and decided low cadence, big gear interval sessions needed to be worked into next season's training. We were mainly silent while clinging to our cups of coffee, admiring the art drawn on the fogged up windows by the kids and suggesting hiding places to Joe who was hiding from some friends. It was very difficult to get warm and dry and we left HQ feeling traumatised by the afternoon's efforts. A farcical last attempt at finding Steve ensued as Dave randomly questioned blokes who looked like a 'Steve' on the way out to no avail. 

I was glad to see the back of cyclocross after this race and it's taken me a week to write the report but a week on and I'm already missing it! Bring on September!

Report by Hannah Ormesher