The Saturday before the race was a lovely sunny day with only a few cloudy patches here and there. Tomorrows race was looking promising i thought...but not according to the weather forecast, rain and possible thunderstorms were on their way! And they were spot on, Sunday morning was raining and miserable. We drove out to the Sparrow Hill, known for its fast, flowing single tracks and got out the umbrellas and started to get the bikes out and get some gear on. After registration a hole in the clouds appeared and a bit of blue sky peept through, from there the whole storm cloud cover cleared and the sun took over! I was happy and I bet the majority of people there were as well.

    I entered the Senior Men category with 7 other keen looking riders, the start was fast as usual but eased a little as we entered the first single track. With 48km ahead made up of 6 laps I had one aim for the race, keep a constant pace each lap the come in hard the last lap! The race folded out very nicely, four of us broke away from the rest of the group leaving a gap of over 5 minutes between us and the 5^th rider. This created a whole race in itself, the four of us were now fighting for 1^st to 4^th place and no-one wanted second let alone third or fourth! The race was going well till I dropped my bottle at the feed zone for the next 3 laps, this made it harder mentally, I new I would not have the fluids and it was crucial that I was able to grab my bottle the fifth lap. I slowed right down and made sure I got it that lap which I new had to last me the next 2 laps.

    The last lap came after about 1 hour and 40 minutes racing and I new it was time to start getting serious, I continued to sit in 4th place at the back of the breakaway bunch for about 10 minutes of the 20 minute lap then slowly moved to the lead. I new I had to leave the single track onto the last fire trail if I was going to win the race but unfortunately I didn't get to the last single track with the lead group. I was leading in the seconds last single track, we were pinning it through the flowing single tracks when I found myself flat on my back after hitting something with my pedal, stopping me dead; I did a front summersult in the air with my shoes still clipped in then landed heavily on my back. I was fine, I was more worried about my bike, the sound that came from the hit had me scared, I thought I must have either destroyed my wheelset or done some serious damage elsewhere. After shaking myself off, giving the guys the OK to continue on and having a quick look over my bike to check the damage I continued on my way. I couldn't see anything wrong with the bike and I new the finish was only another kilometre or so.

    I crossed the finish line 4th, 1 minute behind 1st and 2nd place Simon Tarp Jensen and James Williamson respectively and 30 seconds behind Shaun Lewis. 5th place Andrew Blair was another  5 minutes behind me. Although I didn't win I was still happy with my result, I rode consistent lap times which was my main aim.