Half Fling 2012

Did about 18 minutes better than last year, despite a hard fall at the start of Sherwood Forest, trying to get around a rider who stopped in front of me.

Some of that improvement is down to the track improvements in the farm sniggle section that starts with Sherwood Forest, which were great, though the fall did not help the confidence through there. Nor did the egg that came up on my right quad. The rest of the improvement is down to a (for me) heavy training program in the 3 weeks prior, after a 5 week layoff with an overseas trip. Even felt strong enough to ride all the way up Brokeback Mtn. I had to because there was no other bugger walking! I suppose that happens the further you get away from the back of the field. Nothing like a bit of peer pressure.

Another excellently organised and run race. The Fling is certainly the highlight of the XCM calendar. Enjoyed the Rolloff as well, but wasn't able to get past the quarterfinals. I put it down to flukey cross winds I did get past the gate though...

Be interesting to see whether the Fling result is enough to keep me at the top of the Cyclenation Half XCM Masters Men (over 50's) rankings. I suspect it will just take a few of the 120-odd SuperMasters who rode the Fling to claim results and I will start to drift.....

Just looked at last year's results and while I improved over 120 places overall, I only improved 1 place in SuperMasters. I've got to put up with the improvement in that cohort for a couple of years yet...