Cyclo-cross National strategy fail.

It's Durham's National Trophy tomorrow.

I should be excited but, with a start list of only 11 vet women, I can't say I am enthralled with the prospect of the competition.  Fighting not to get lapped by Hannah who will have a 2 minute start on me is where I am setting my targets.

There's a shiny new bike in the loft with my name on it (although I haven't ordered a name sticker yet) and it will get its first muddy run tomorrow.  It's been throwing it down more or less all day so there's no spoiler alerts on the weather conditions.

I've had a tough week training.  Something in me needs to justify the new bike.  As christmas shopping picks up pace and the weather stayed foul all week, I couldn't actually face driving my car to work all week and gave myself quite a basting, doing interval training in the rain... oh and an out-of-the-blue rollers session on Monday night.

I did nothing on Wednesday and felt bad.  I had a recovery ride on Friday though that was interrupted by a sprint to tell a corsa driver he nearly killed me.  I also unpolitely advised him he might want to consider turning his hands free phone off too.

Rather than resting today, I got a load of to do list out of the way.  Purely indulgent.  Shopping.  It was "a good walk", though I let the bus take the strain on the hard bit - the uphill home.

In terms of race fitness, I feel like tomorrow is a 'B' race.  I'm training tired and haven't taken enough time to recover.  It makes sense since I've already missed two national trophies and don't intend to race at Ipswich either but it is a race and it will keep the creative juices flowing in standby for next weekend - a local Yorkshire race whereby I will be defending the FV40 category.  Something I can get my teeth into.

So peaks  for this season?

The national championships, of course.
Sheffield's cyclo-cross at Whitely Woods in two weeks time
The North of England Champs on my old stomping grounds of Heaton Park in Manchester
and of course...
Bradford - not because National Trophy but because Bradford.

Bring on the mud.