I don’t want to talk about this for too long because the tears might break my keyboard. This was my 2nd XC race ever, my first being 2 years ago and I had obviously wiped that from my memory. This was quite the brutal reintroduction to XC but the good news is I made it through injury free, I helped the team to win gold but somehow I’m disappointed. I think I should have done better, mentally I wasn’t with it today, I didn’t fight enough and when I knew I had my place secured I was happy to just see it through.
It was a relatively dry but breezy Sunday morning out in the wilderness of the North Cork countryside, Castlelyons to be precise. Preparation wasn’t ideal, I was in Dublin on my brother stag last night, 2am by the time I got to sleep having had to carry himself home and then up at 6:30am to get the bus back to Cork. I didn’t drink too much but I did have toblerone cheesecake again in Luigi’s, I’m not sure if it’s the rocket fuel I once thought it was. Anyway the race was a pure slogfest. We kicked off at 12pm, into strong headwinds, tough, energy sapping climbs and mud (and cowsh!t) up to your eyeballs. The course was 8k, 2 x 1000m laps an 4 x 1500m laps. I went out too fast and by the 2nd lap I was already dying a death wondering how I’d get through the rest of it. I was sitting in 8th and had a good gap on the guy behind me. My clubmate was just ahead of me but I didn’t have the drive to stick with him and he gradually pulled away. I just persevered through the last 4 laps, I knew the pace was slowing but because I had such a gap behind me I didn’t push more than I had to. I did find a second wind coming to the end and made up some ground but If anything this was a really good burnout session before the marathon. I didn’t lose any places but I didn’t gain any either and we ended up taking the gold pretty comfortably placing 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th. XC is a completely different animal to the road races and I will be approaching my next one with a little more caution at the start.
Anyway this wasn’t a goal race so not going to dwell on it too much, job done and on we go to the main event next week. Legs are about to be raised to a vertical position on the couch and shall remain there for the unforeseen future. Gold medal on my debut for Leevale, can’t complain too much.
8th place overall, 4th placer for Leevale (team gold)
