Yesterday it was our turn to host the Scottish Cross Country Series travelling circus, and on home territory our riders put on a show. Headline credit has to go to Gareth, turning in his third outright 'Elite' win in three races. Three out of three ain't bad. And it's easy to see why - Gareth was absolutely flying, particularly in his first and third laps. I had been happily taking photographs of all our other riders as they came past, but Gareth was incredibly difficult to photograph because he was past so quickly - before you had time to frame a shot he was gone.

But actually Gareth's was not quite the performance of the day. On the first lap Gareth came through my position twenty seconds ahead of Bruce, who, in turn, was more than thirty seconds ahead of the pack. But then, later on the lap, Bruce's chain came off and jammed and he dropped back eight places, losing over five minutes. And every lap after that, Bruce was clawing back ground and places, finishing third only 2 minutes 42 seconds behind Gareth. So we not only have the fastest man in Scotland in our club, we also have the closest challenger!

Sally brought us a second prize in Juvenile Female, Ryan came second and Ross fifth in the Under 16 Fun Male, Angus got 10th in Juvenile Male, and Liam got 12th in Youth Male. Kenny finished 27th in Veteran Male. Janet rode in the Veteran Female but did not finish.

Afterwards Janet said "The worst bits were the pre-race nerves which plagued me when I was doing the Nationals 5 years ago and trying to convince myself that it was just a bit of fun and didn't matter if I didn't do very well... I love the camaraderie of races and it was great to see so many folk in Stewartry Wheelers kit all shouting at each other."

Two performances from outside our club also stood out for me. The first was a lassie called Morven Brown (HIMBA/Square wheels) in the Youth Female class. A bunch of riders came bursting through where I was marshalling saying there was a rider down, first aid needed. I phoned Gregg at the next marshalling post up the track, who had the first aiders with him, and he said they were already attending. I wasn't certain it was the same casualty so I started running back up the course. And then a lassie came through on a bike, saying 'I'm alright, I'm alright'. She clearly wasn't. She was clearly hurting a lot. A hundred yards above my station she got off and sat at the side of the track for a couple of minutes, just holding her head. I went over and spoke to her. I wasn't sure whether she was concussed, but she said the first aid people had seen her and had let her go on. She said she had to finish. And after another moment she got up and started to run up the hill, pushing her bike. I thought she was amazingly couragous and gallant, and I'm desperately sorry to see in the results that she 'did not finish'.

The other outstanding performance for me was Rik Allsop of the eponymous Bike Shed, who came in in eighth place in the Masters - on a singlespeed. Mad, but gloriously mad.