Had to get up early, pack up the car and head to Cyclopark to make the 12-1:30 pre-regional training session.
The session was really good, I had some knee pain but as I got warmed up that went away a bit and I was gating really well. Unfortunately the track had been “resurfaced” which meant that the first straight was lippy AF and was proving to be really hard to get through smoothly! I did probably 5-10 full laps and then 20-30 first straight and I was unable to hit the first jump at full speed or carry any speed over the first straight at all. So the fact that I was gating really well was negated by the fact that I had to stop pedalling after 3-4 pedals and basically freewheel and try and hold on over the first jump!
I tried to pull onto it, manual it, Jumal (jump + Manual = Jumal) over it and nothing was smooth and after a few tries my collar bone started to hurt due to the constant banging! The other 2 jumps were not much better either!
Before the National I need to work on my manuals urgently to try and get this straight smooth! Also a decent manual seems make the 2nd, 3rd and 4th straights faster too so it will help drop the lap times too.
As the first straight was going so badly I didn’t have time to work on the 3rd and 4th straights either so I will just have to hold on on them!!
As the training session was limited to 42 riders there was enough time to practice everything you wanted to practice and it was super relaxed and you literally walked to the gate and got on without having to que which is unheard of in pre-regional training.
After riding we went for lunch at Morrison’s cafe with my friend/ training partner / coach and his daughter which was really good then we did some shopping in Morrision’s and then my son and myself went to the hotel and got sorted and chilled for a bit and then we went to the Toby in the hotel carpark and had a carvery which neither of us was wanting or in the mood for 🙁 then we went back to the room and slept as the clock were going forwards Sunday morning so we were going to lose an hours sleep!