BSCA National and Regional Roller Championships 2012/13

Finlay Trying his best

Entered both Jack and Finlay into the roller championship, Jack in the Under 11s and Finlay in the Under 9s. Jack took it very seriously and was been practising on his power trainer for a couple of weeks. I got him an electric speedo which helped him to judge 500 metres and 1 kilometre, the distances that he needed to do in the competition. Finlay had borrowed a Beinn 24 Islabike from the bike club, he had a few goes at home but wasn't as serious as Jack.

The competition was held at Richard Dunn sports centre in the main hall. The kids competed in fours, they did two 500 metre runs, their best time from the two runs used to calculate points. Finally they did a single run for 1 kilometre again points were awarded. The was a straight 500 metre race for any kids who tied on points at the end.

Jack with blurred legs!

Jack came overall 3rd in the under 11s, his best 500 metre time was 30.346 seconds on his first run and he did 1 kilometre in 1min 6.76 seconds. He needs to find 3 seconds over 500 metres and  8 seconds over a kilometre. Jack was happy with his performance and enjoyed the day.

Finlay had to fight for his 3rd place, all the other kids were on race bikes with skinny tyres, Finlay's bike had big fat off road tyres which I know from experience make everything much harder. Finlay's best 500 metre time was 45.399 and over 1 kilometre he did 1 minute 45.159. This tied him for third and he had to do a roll off, it had been a bit of an emotional competition already for Finlay and it took quite a lot of cajoling to get him ready for the roll off. He set off slowly by by half way he got in front of the other kid, when he finished the other kid thought he'd won and stopped peddling,   I confirmed with the officials that Finlay had won, the other kid broke out into tears and his celebrating family went all quiet. I was happy for Finlay but struggled with drama of the race and the unfortunate way that it ended, it meant so much to get a good result, I was surprised at how serious it got, Finlay is only 7! The surprising thing was his 500 metre roll off time was 39.665, so it does prove that he was really trying.

It was great to see both kids getting their bronze meddles, both me and Andrea were well chuffed for them. It had ultimately been a positive experience for both of them, hope it keeps them motivated.