jaymiemart.com: Scottish Championships 2007

I ventured into a dry pit area on Friday arvo with a spring in my step, some funky beats blasting out and a big ole smile! After a cool evening at home with the Braithwaites, I retired for some much needed RnR and was rudely awoken by the belting lash of rain from ootside.

With the babble that is the SDA MTB circus stampeding into the pits on Saturday morning, the race site could have been mistaken for a chameleon! The lush green grass morphed with a blink of an eye into a festival style mud fest!! Practice on Saturday was a washout! Everyone brave enough to embrace the weather was rewarded with a reassuring soaking through to the tighty whiteies!

After 6 hours of being cold and soggy, M-Dawg and I went on the hunt for a warm meal, a shower and the ultimate luxury of a springy, soft, cozy bed for the night! We landed in a BnB just outside of Ae Village messed around racking up the scores on the BopIT and watched a movie. Lights were out early, but we were blasted away from the sandman with big bangs, floor shuddering shakes and hollers of ‘BOOM BOOM, YOUR DEEEEEEAD’ echoing shiveringly from the room next door. My first reaction was that there was a girl next door on the knuckle end of her drunken partner. Mark and I whisked on our detective hats and leaped to the rescue, PJ’s galore!! After a not so brave attempt to conjure up a citizens arrest plot, we went and got the manger. It turned out it was two guys, beating each other to a pulp!! Never a dull moment hu!!

I was really surprised how many people chickened out of racing this weekend. I am sure the weather was a big deciding factor, but it seems a shame that the guys stay up until crazy o’clock to enter online and guarantee a slot in the race, get totally excited about the prospect of racing then shy away at the first sign of rain and mud. I have always adopted the ‘seek a challenge, not a chore’ motto and can’t understand why people give up so easily!! It is Scotland after all, the natives should be used to it!! :) X. It was commendable to see the racers riding out the tough lines and battling it out in the squelchie mud, no matter what level. I guess it is dedication and motivation that separates the racers from the Sunday riders.

After sinking my feet into my cold wet shiver inducing size 4s, we all went up for a few polishing runs bright and early on Funday Sunday morn. The course was really good, Ae is never really wet even when it is wet, only a few sections crack at the sign of rain which was great, as it was torrential on Saturday. My first race run was terrible. As usual, I was sat gassing away, completely oblivious to the time and nearly missed my run, I literally hauled ass to get into my race slot and rolled off the line. I felt so strong and up for it, I set out sprinting on the top section, caught my pedal on a rock and high sided down the off camber, away from my bike and landed, punter stylee with a gargantuan thump!! I got to the bottom 20 seconds back from first place and the rage set in!! The stern race head voice played over in my head for the next few hours until my next run. I set off up the hill with one aim. To win. I shadow boxed the ghosts from my first run and shook the monkeys off my back. Thankfully, I pulled it together and made up enough time to take the race win and keep hold of my Scottish Championship title from 2006.

Delighted and relieved that the trophy is home to roost for yet another year, I relaxed up on course with the Youngster who made it down for the day and took a few lessons from Big Bill Machechnie in the fine art of Scottish caber tossing!! Splendid!!