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After Brazil I had decided to skip the European Champs and take
the week off as I felt like my body needed a good recovery before
the 2nd part of the season. It was great timing as it was a great
week of sport on the television, with Wimbledon and the Football
World Cup finals!! I returned to training at the start of the week
but I was still feeling pretty drained. I had not been feeling right,
getting stomach pains and feeling a bit sick in the mornings since
I had come back from Brazil so I finally went to the doctors just
before I left for the national. After doing some tests they found
out I had brought a little present back from Brazil in my gut !
A little parasite called Giardia that is very common in South America
and Asia. It’s most likely that I picked it up from the water
or from just touching a surface that had been touched by someone
who had Giardia. Anyway I managed to start the antibiotics at the
weekend so hopefully I will be clear of it in a week. I was glad
to find out why I hadn’t been feeling great and also I was
fortunate that the race at the weekend was on quite a short track
so I shouldn’t be too affected by my low energy levels.
It has been a scorching week in England and the track for the national
was so dry and dusty that it was changing so fast with the weekend
of practice. It got so loose and dusty that I decided to use my
swampthing mud tyres to try and get some extra grip. The weekend
was spread out a lot as we had practice and seeding on the Friday
and then did not race until the Sunday. I only did 3 practice runs
on the Friday as I had overworked my shoulder in the week running
up to the race and I was trying to give it as long as possible to
recover before starting riding again. Luckily it recovered really
quickly and riding in the afternoon it was feeling fine. I seeded
in 2nd behind Rachel Atherton, 3 secs back. I knew Rach was going
to be tough to beat this weekend as it is a track that her brothers
built and one that they have trained on loads over the last few
years. She also just won the European Champs so would still be riding
on a high from that result. However I knew that I could go a lot
faster as I really hadn’t done much practice yet. By the time
Sunday came I had timed my practice and I was doing runs that were
about 6/7secs faster than Rachel’s seeding time so I knew
I was going about the right pace.
The race went well, I got all my lines, I took it easy in one of
the sections that had really got blown out during practice and then
just pedalled aggressively where I felt it was safe to. It was a
tough track as there was so much narrow off camber riding that you
could not afford to come off line anywhere. I was pleased with my
run and I crossed the line with a time of 2.40min, taking the lead
from Helen Gaskell who posted a 2.46min. I then had to wait to see
if Rachel could beat my time, she came down in 2.44min so I had
the win. It was great to win a National Title again as I have missed
out on the event for the last few years and especially now with
the standard of riding in the UK it’s a great result and also
a great step in my preparation for the World Championships in less
than 6 weeks time.
So now it’s a couple of days at home and then off to Finland
this weekend to ride and race at the Kona Bike Park in Levi. It
should be really good fun as the sun doesn’t go down in Finland
at this time of year !!
Tracy
Tracy Moseley - British Downhill National Champion - 2006
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