Anna's first race back after breaking her arm!

It was my first race back since breaking my arm and my third race of the season. I broke my arm ages ago so I don't really know what my excuse is, other than that work took over.

I run my own business and was working for The Cycle Show (they were the bastards that broke my arm in the first place! Ha!) and somehow I forgot to fit racing in. And after my little 4-day riding holiday the other weekend I realised how much I missed it. How happy riding my bike makes me.

I have been brought up racing bikes. I realise I am out of touch, not "in the zone" and of course, super unfit. But the MuleBarGirl in me won't let that get in the way of racing. In fact, my view of racing is somewhat skewed. I won't train to get fit enough to race, I will race to get fit.

There's nothing like dumping yourself in the deep end and just suffering, until you suffer a bit less and a bit less.

So I have book in 3 races for 3 weekends in a row. I will update on how a get on.

Last weekend was great fun, at the final round of the UK Gravity Enduro series. It was a nightmare to get to and I was on a borrowed bike, in the usual Anna-Chaos. I was on the tube in London with a huge kit bag, a bike, helmets clipped to myself with my Oyster card in my mouth on  a Friday night. It's possibly one of the shittest ways to spend what should be a party night.

But it was worth the effort. I got to my friend Maxine's house and from that moment on it was a wicked-girls-riding weekend!

We got lucky with the weather, like, super lucky. Sunshine all round whilst the neighbouring areas had rain (sun shines on the reverent and all that) Yeah Boiii.

Practice was fun but I quickly realised how weak I was and gave up my ambition of winning.

On race day, I had tried to prepare, as Maxine had filmed our runs on the go-pro so we could look at them again after. But the thing is, as I watched them I'd realise that by the end of it I was thinking about all sorts of things, nothing to do with racing and hadn't taken anything in. So I won't try that technique again.

Run 1 was the same as the seeding run and I felt a lot faster than I had in seeding, and I didn't crash. And the day went on. But the thing is, I missed one of my starts. I just couldn't get up the hill fast enough. My legs were screaming. So I got a 1 minute time penalty. I definitely could say goodbye to the win!!

When the times were posted at the end I was actually pretty pleased and surprised to still end up in 4th place, with a few of my runs being the fastest. I still have it. Just need to get fit innit.

Bring on next week!