Training Log Archive: TimM

Result yesterday meant a place in the A team with Willy and Bash. Didn't get much sleep at all, bricking it. Will did his job and I went out a little bit behind Oli. Very nervous going to 1, saw the yellow behind the control but thought it looked a bit like a ride so got a tad confused a stopped for a few seconds before carrying on. Easy to 2 but 3 felt weird, not sure the green was mapped correctly. Luckily didn't lose much. Did lose time to 4, came out to low on the fence by quite a bit. Crossed the fence and could see Oli crossing the one at 5, the gap was still pretty much how it was when I had started. Bit too high on 6 and then overshot 7, this really pissed me off as it was stupid. Absolute slog through to 11, struggling to keep any kind of tempo. Then into 12, was pretty confident coming into it and expected it to appear right in front of me, but it didn't. Stopped, heart rate rose dramtically, couldn't work out what was going on, went a bit right and there it was. Very frustrated by this, had lost significant time already and was sure I'd ruined it.
More scrapiness to 13, poor disance judgement and stopped way to early. Fully expected Nixon to come past at any second. Really tried to up it into 16, realised it was quite a tricky control so was relieved when I was only a little bit right. Throught to spectator suffering pretty hard and had seen Oli ahead looking a fair bit off. But then saw him miss 19 so the gap closed a bit, made sure I was solid on all the streams and punched 21 a couple of seconds behind him. Bit scrappy to 22 and he had a different gaffle which avoided the death climb up to 23 so he got away. Nearly missed 24 and then prepared to vomit up to the final control.
Had it been anyone other than Bash on last leg I would have been more annoyed with myself for letting it slip a bit, but fully trusted him to catch Dane. It looked like it was too much at spectator but then the commentators said he was only 3 seconds down at pre warning and so it was definitely on. ShUOC seemed confident Dane would appear first, as they waited at the last control. Will and I were further down the run in and went absoutely mental when a red top appeared, with a huge grin on his face. Hopped over the fence and cruised to the finish. Proud to have been a small part of the win; it's not a bad feeling winning the British with your mates!