My Triathlon Journey

The race was at Redbridge Cycling Centre, on the outskirts of London. We left early and the as the weather report had predicted it was cold, it rained and it was windy. This set for a super muddy race, in true and proper cyclocross conditions. When we turned up, the race schedule had been put back 20 minutes. As I waited to start a practise lap I could see over the horizon, above the array of course tape, the various buildings in their shapes and sizes and the tall skyline of the London itself.

After the practise, the course was pretty wet and churned up with mud in places. The race start was at the bottom of the hill joining up to the finish. The gridding area was four riders abreast and I ended up in the third row. It was a quick start going into a muddy uphill which we would come down the opposite way on, during the following laps. After going by the finishing tent, we went down a steep downhill descent, for about a kilometre, with switchbacks which was on the gravel mountain bike route at the cycling centre. The course went over a few rollers and table top jumps which had a big puddle at the bottom of them, after every single one. After exiting onto the grass there were a couple of steep banks full of muddy ruts and thorn bushes on ever side. Next there was a set of steps followed by a short flat slog which had become nearly pointless to ride after a few laps, conjoining onto another of the mountain bike switchback paths – this time going uphill. It then passed the crammed pits and followed yet another – this time fairly fast – uphill, with a small sharp climb, slippery from the mud and the amount of times it had been ridden over. The lap finished off with a little off camber section, opposite the finish, on the over side of the tape, and then downhill the other way to where we had started. The final bit afterwards was one last climb to the finish.

The race itself went well for me. I had a decent start but was just behind a group of riders that were about three or four seconds ahead. I caught onto the back of them into the first lap. When going onto the short slippy hill, most in front had jumped off. I ran up the left and got ahead breaking the group by a few seconds and moving on to the next riders. Passing the finish tent the lap board said I had two laps to go. I passed two more riders in my category and an older boy then overtook me (the under 16’s and 14’s race are together but are separate categories). There was another boy about five seconds behind but I managed to hold him off in a tough final lap to take fourth in the under 14’s.