Nationals, Inter Regional Track Champs and Scottish Champs

Wow! Its been a busy month and a half! It all started way back in mid August at the British Track Championships in Manchester. I had 3 days of racing with a day in between each so was a long week spent in Manchester. First up was the 2km Pursuit, it went not to bad apart from a run in with the pads on the last corner and I set a new P.B but finished quite far down the field so wasn’t to happy with it. The week only got worse from there as I fail to qualify for my scratch final and is safe to say I wasn’t to happy (sorry mum). So it all came down to the points race to save my nationals. I didn’t get any points which to be fair is kind of the point of the race but I did get in a few attacks and stayed in the bunch so that lightened the mood on the way home.

Most people would have taken some time off after the nationals but it’s all go for us youths as a week later I was off to the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow to represent Scotland in the Inter Regional Track Championships.  Just to be selected for the Scottish Team was an honour as only 3 girls and 4 boys from the whole of Scotland made the team, and ERC/MCRT had 2 riders on the team (Ben Forsyth and me) more than any other team had. The racing kicked off on the Friday morning nice and early with a 6am start, oh the joys, and first up for me was sprint qualifying. I had ridden Glasgow enough to know the lines and had one of the better lines round the top of the banking (according to Tim Buckle, the hugely enthusiastic commentator) and set a P.B for my flying 200 so happy happy Emma and even better I qualified 8^th, which meant I qualified for the finals. Round 1 in the blue of Scotland Emma Borthwick, in the black of West Midlands Sophie Capewell, the under 16 sprint champion and 2^nd in the junior championships.  Well to say the odds were against me would be being kind. Anyway lots of sprint rounds later, I finished 8^th which for a non sprinter I’ll happily take.

Day 2 was more to my liking with the 2km pursuit in the morning and the Madison the afternoon. My 2km was sore. And slow. But onwards and upwards to the main event of my 3 days, the Madison. In preparation for the race Rhona Callander and I had done some hand sling practice so by race day we were pretty slick and had some of the best changes in the race (again said by Tim not me just being modest). I lined up right at the front so we got a good clean start and we were at the front of the race the whole time. Tactically we said we’d go for sprints and if a good break went we’d to and try to get the lap, well the the race went almost to plan and we got points and got in move to get a lap, unfortunately the race was blown apart and ‘bunch’ we were trying to lap was about 2 or 3 riders so was hard to tell who we were aiming to lap and unfortunately we didn’t quite make it. But we finished 5^th which we were so happy with as we were both at least a year younger than some of the girls.

 Day 3 was team day with team sprints in the morning and team pursuit in the afternoon. Rhona and I were team sprint team and came 10^th and with a new national record being set by the winners, it was a fast race. The team pursuit was one of my favourite races of the weekend as it was the only race all the girls raced together and it went beautifully, well in my opinion, we had a strong ride for 7^th with the fastest time the Scottish Female team has ever set in the Inter Regionals competition. The whole thing was an awesome experience and I didn’t want it to end! The whole team were stars and we came away as a team with a good medal haul and some new Scottish records, the whole thing would not have been possible with out our brilliant team staff Laura Irwin, Martin Harris and Leigh Marshall.

After two hard weeks at big events it was a recovery week before racing at the Scottish Criterium Championships at Ingliston. The race was a very tactical one and happily I won the race and as a first year A I get to try and defend my title next year. No rest for the Youth as the next weekend it was off to Dundee for 2 days of track racing, including the Scottish Scratch Championships. On the Saturday was the Championship race and it was a tuff race as I had to chance lots of breaks and going into the last lap had a perfect position sitting in 2^nd wheel with a small gap to rush out the last banking and got the line 1^st.