Shelsley Walsh, What a weekend, rain, sunshine, wind, and thunder & lighting.....typical British summer..
I could not get into my stride because of the conditions and also had a problem selecting gears, going into 5th instead of 3rd. put a lot of pressure on me because of this.
After the first timed runs I missed gears twice on the run and was laying 2nd, two seconds behind first place. It was all down to the final run, I was last to run and tried to get myself into a right state of mind,
Then I made another mistake by watching the 1st place guy do a run 4 seconds quicker than his morning run due to the dryer conditions...this did not help
I made a reasonable start but was concentrating so much on selecting the gears I knew I was not as fast I as should be, but kept the run clean & tidy and once the final gear change was completed really gunned it for the finish. Result was I dropped nearly 7 seconds from my morning run and got 1st Place. Job done.
It's been a goal of mine to get a 1st at Shelsley for many years as this is the pinnacle of British Hill climbs and to do it at the National meeting is a dream come true.
Phil