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The last Open 5 of the series took us down to Hope in the Peak District. This was the
5th race in the series, and for the last 4 races, Louise and I had been leading the
series, however, there were a couple of girls right behind us and it was all going to be
down to the last race ? which ever one of us came 1st at Hope, would win the series.
No pressure then! This was going to be a tough one. As usual, we opted to ride first
and headed off up towards Mam Tor. We did some fantastic mountain biking along Rushup
Edge, then round the back of Mam Tor and up to Hollins Cross on excellent tracks.
Then down to Edale and along the bottom of the valley, picking off points from controls
on either side of the valley.
With everything to play for, we raced back to the event centre and into transition to
change into our running shoes; normally we spend far too long in transition, but not
today (we were focused!), a quick change and we were off on the run. This took us North of Hope, up and
around Win Hill. We traversed East first and ended up near the bottom of Ladybower
Reservoir, from where we had to do a massive climb straight up to the top of Win Hill ?
300m in 1 Km ? needless to say, there was no running ? and no amount of jelly babies were
going to help at this stage!
After Winhill we were a bit stuck, we could either drop down and pick up a couple of
controls and be back 15 minutes early or head off North West (further away) to Wooler
Knoll and risk the chance of being late back, but pick up quite a few more controls
(if we headed this way, we were very much committed as there was no way of cutting it
short). Tough decision ? and as always, we spent far too long deciding what to do!
In the end, we decided to risk it and go for more points. So we raced off towards Wooler
Hill, but when we got there, we couldn?t find the control! Now the clock was seriously
ticking. After a good 5 minutes we eventually found it ? in a very obvious place!
It was too late though, we knew we were not going to be back within the 5 hours.
We raced back down the tracks towards Hope and the finish line. We?d tried our hardest;
we?d raced our hearts out and we couldn?t have done any more. We did get back late,
we did lose points, we didn?t win, we came 2nd, beaten by the competition! But no matter
what, we had a fantastic day out, in fabulous countryside and near perfect weather.
The whole series has been amazing ? we will be back next year!
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