CX national series round 5 Christchurch

For this round we were racing in Hagley park in the centre of my home city. We had a bit of rain over the week so the ground was very soggy and the course went through some nice wet bogs. Also had some stream crossing so it turned into a very nice muddy feast, which was welcomed seeing we hadn't experienced the true elements of cross racing. Our newly crowned national champs, Gary Hall and Kim Hammer-Hurst made the trip down. I was hoping to hang onto Gary for at least a few laps but he just had too much gas for me and I lost his wheel before the end of the first lap. So I stayed in 2nd for the rest of the race just pushing myself as hard a I could. That's where I finished up. Conceding just over 2 minutes. I am pretty pleased with that but would have liked that time cap to be a little smaller. Looking to close that cap at the final round in Blenheim.