British Champs Long 2011, M40L, 3rd place.
I guess a championship race is ultimately about position. I thought before the race that I had an outside chance of a top 3 finish. And in the end I was indeed on the podium in 3rd, which I am delighted with.
It is a lot harder to be delighted with my performance though, nothing like the performance i thought would be needed for a top finish. Shaky at 1&2, felt like i was into it through 3&4 but got confused on the way to 5 (never got a grip on the path/ride mapping in the Greno section) and when i did relocate ran to #8 not #5 by mistake. Saw Ben punching and realised. More time gone at 7 and coming back to 8, all adding up to a terrible start losing more than 6 mins by control 8. Probably helped that i knew i was only a minute longer than Ben to 8 so didn't realise quite how much time i had lost. Improved briefly but problems at 13&14 cost another minute, then a miss at the end of the long leg to 15 (plus perhaps also my route?) meant another 2 mins or so gone. There were positives too though as from 15 I ran the final half hour really well and pushed hard with fastest splits on the two longest legs in that section. I was in 8th at #15 and more than 5 mins off a top 3, so the final section was good for me!
Bill won in just under 70mins, Rich Barrett was second in 72mins, then I sneaked into third at the head of a little group - me 78mins then Neil C, Ben and Andy M all on 79mins and Jase on 81mins.
Route:
http://www.syo.routegadget.co.uk/cgi-bin/reitti.cg...