Finally, the big weekend that we have been waiting all season for. McCrystals CX Track was the venue of this years National Cyclocross Champs and it was the driest course that we have had in a few years. I was coming into the race as the joint favourite along side my rival this season Rian McCrystal who was on his home course so I knew it was going to be a challenge to beat him as he knew the course so well. I knew that it could go either way on the day so I had to play my cards right and see what happens. I had a plan coming into today and I executed it pretty but in the end it didn’t all fall into place.

I got another brilliant start the same as the national series last week. I opened up a slight gap by the end of the long start straight and I knew that now was the time to shine as I had planned to do. I rode a very clean 1st lap and had decent gap of 17 seconds after lap 1. The 2nd lap was pretty similar to the 1st lap it was very clean and fast and I increased the gap up to 24 seconds by the end of this lap. Now onto the final lap, this is wear the problems started to happen. I started to loose energy and Rian was closing up on me. I decided and not pit for a clean bike and this cause me to struggle to clip into the pedals which meant I was loosing power on the straights. With around 3 minutes left of the race I was caught by Rian and we were all together, the panic was starting to kick in and I knew I had just made things a lot harder for myself as he had a flyer of a last lap. AS we approached the hill he attacked me and I sprinted with everything I had to latch onto his wheel but my legs were done and I couldn’t respond to his power. I closed the gap a little on the descent but it wasn’t enough and he took the win and I had to settle for 2nd.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t win but I gave it my best shot and left everything out there on the course so I can be proud of that. I executed my plan until the last lap and it was just unlucky what happened and I’ve learnt from my mistakes. I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who cheered for me out on the course today it definitely helped dig that little bit harder and also to all the staff and everyone behind the scenes at the VC Glendale Academy their support has been amazing all season. Only 2 more races left and then that’s my cross’ season over for 22/23. Its been an amazing season for me and I’m super happy with how much I’ve came on this winter. Now time to finish off cross with 2 charity races for a bit of fun then to take a break from training before getting back to the hard work for a big MTB/Road season coming up.