Thanks to the guys at Torq I managed to sneak in a last-minute entry to the Torq in your Sleep 6-hour event at Minley Manor. Recently we’ve had a resurgence in enthusiasm for DIY so the morning was spent bodging a new temporary window together from odds and sods before heading across the M4 to the torrential conditions that ensued.

As is now standard this year a good start followed by a mechanical early on in the first lap put me dead last with a lot of traffic to get through which became increasingly tricky in the sloppy conditions with my xc tyres that I didn’t have time to swap over. The risk of ploughing in to unwitting people being overtaken wasn’t really worth it so this hindered progress.

I wondered whether I would still be up for it after a shit start but I talked myself in to getting up to full gas again but it was tricky to put the power down whilst desperately just trying to stay upright.

I found myself in no-mans-land between the fast boys and the rest for a while so I practiced what coach Jon has said previously about concentrating and not easing up/going in to comfortable discomfort mode. I was pretty happy to catch lots of people in the last couple of laps forcing myself to dig deep which was hard not knowing where I was placing. I eventually took a spill on the last lap which was good showing I wasn’t holding back despite the weather. I was a bit disappointed to miss out on the podium after feeling I was getting close.

As ever these events are great to catch up with people and hearing people shout for you from trackside you couldn’t even make out in the muck was great. Thanks to Team Suttie for the shelter and bottle hand ups.

The next few weeks will involve some training through races including the Brecon Beast and 6 hour Shouldham XC so plenty of chance to boost the form and have at least one incident free race this year!

As always a huge thanks to my sponsors for their help:  Taylored Cycles. FUNN, ESI Grips, E3C Coaching, Ultimate Sports Engineering and Torq Fitness.