At AJP, one of the lessons that we have to teach the Enduro Africa guys is about choosing lines. You know, where there are several choices of line around or through an obstacle. We need to teach them to take the one that conserves the most energy.

I will not be teaching this lesson. I will be a pupil in this lesson. The reason for this will become clear.

The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about manure:

"It is better to compost fresh manure for a few months to allow the nitrogen to dissipate and then use it, or obtain well-rotted manure for immediate use.

Well-rotted manure does not smell of anything more pungent than sweet earthiness and it tends to be dark brown, even black. The length of the maturing process depends upon the air temperature, the time of year and the size of the manure heap.

The bigger the heap, the hotter it will get inside and therefore the faster the manure will decompose".

We'll come back to manure in a minute. In the meantime, I was rather proud of my race at West Wilts today. In the trail class, where there was only six of us (including a couple of sandbaggers), there were two AJP PR3s. I was on one of them, a guy called Barry was on the other. Martin was riding a race-prepped Husaberg 450, somebody was on a Yamaha 250, another guy was on a Sherco trials bike, and somebody else was on a Gas-Gas EC300 2-stroke.

The forecasted downpour never arrived. It was dry, dusty and sunny. A little damp in places but great racing conditions. The course was unashamedly Motocross - lots of open going and fast corners - with only two very nasty bits through trees and woods. I got a great start - second out of the gate bearing down on Martin. He had more straight-line speed than I did, but I was cornering better than he was so I was keeping up with him. Until about a mile into the course that is.

We came to a bit at the bottom of a field. There was this huge black-plastic-wrapped round haybale with red tape on it in the middle of the course. I thought that it marked the course boundary and, in a way, it did. Martin, wily old dog, knew what it meant and went left of it. I didn't know what it meant and went right of it.

What I know now, and didn't at the time, was that this big black plastic cylinder with red tape was saying "don't go this way. Whatever you do, don't go this way". As I quickly discovered, the "this way" it was referring to was to the right. Don't go to the right.

I can officially testify - under oath - that the Hitch Hikers Guide has got it absolutely spot-on. A pile of rotting cow manure is, in fact, black. I know this because I ploughed straight into a 3-feet-deep pile of the stuff.

I have complained and bitched and bleated about the different grades of mud. Normal mud, enduro mud, tank-trap mud and even Moroccan mud. I've went into great detail about the suckiness, the stickiness, the oh-my-god-my-feet-are-stuck aspects of the various types of mud. The main reason why I went on about mud so much, and made a big deal about how evil it was, is that I had never encountered rotting cow shit until today. The bike stopped dead from about 30mph, cowshit higher than the footpegs, and future plans for offspring were severely jeapordised by the resulting crotch/handlebar interface.

In a way, I thanked my stars that I was behind Martin at the time. The slagging I would have got for taking such a stupid line would have lasted an awful long time. The remaining 4 guys in our class sailed past - on the left of the bale.

I got off and rocked the bike from side to side to try and break the Dyson-like suction force of the bovine evilness. I laid it on its side,then picked it up and laid it on it's other side. The sucky cowshit held firm. At this point, I still just thought it was mud. Then I took a lungful and realised that this wasn't quite exactly just mud. It was a years worth of Ermintrude's digested dinners, helpfully bulldozed into a little pile at the bottom of the field.

I put the bike on its side and fought back the retching as I stuck my hands in to get the front wheel out. Normally, you'd not even consider sticking your hands elbow-deep into a pile of cowshit for any earthly reason. But this is a race. Different rules apply. Somewhere ahead of me on that track, getting further away, was Martin - whose arse I was sworn to whip today. If that bike didn't come out, then I might as well go home.

I get my hands under the wheel and pull as hard as I can. I feel this almighty tear in the bottom of my back and I fall flat on my arse in agony. I don't know what I've done, but I've really done something to my lower back. Bollocks. I'm not even a mile into the first lap yet, I'm covered in cowshit, and now I've gone and done my back in as well.

I did, at that point, consider just letting it drop for today. I mean, what's the big deal? I was as sick as a dog yesterday and - even as late as 7pm last night - I didn't think I would be well enough to race. I also had to consider that the prospects of The Missus sharing a bed with me tonight were slim - if I stunk like Daisy's arse.

I decided that I might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb, and that I was finishing this race regardless. I didn't come here to DNF in this most embarassing of ways. all covered in cowshit. I took off my helmet and gloves and got on my knees in the filthiness. I started doing what any self-respecting enduro rider would do. I dug. I dug like a little puppy looking for a bone. Dig dig dig dig dig. Scoop after scoop of prime rotting manure. This bike was coming out - especially now I've went to the lengths of covering myself in cowshit.

A couple of spectators, who had witnessed the carnage from afar, came over to investigate:

"What are you doing in there then?"

"The wrong thing"

"You don't want to be in there!"

You think? I grinned at them:

"This is me putting my 'how bad a line can I take?' plan into action"

Two of them then waded in to give me a hand to drag the bike out. Another four or five minutes of rocking, tipping, pulling and swearing, and out she popped like a champagne cork.

This little fiasco had taken over twenty minutes, and two hours worth of energy - five minutes into a 3-hour race. I was about to jump on the bike and set off, then I remembered what happened in Morocco. When I got stuck in the mud, and got exhausted pulling the bike out (which I could never have done without the help of my ITM), I broke my collar bone about 3 miles later. Not again. No way.

I also had to be mindful that I have injured my back and that if I came off, then there was a good chance that I couldn't pick the bike up.

"Use the gifts God gave you" I tell myself. I am smart. I have lots of stamina. Use your brain. You have enough stamina to deal with 3 hours, and then some more. What's the smart thing to do here? Is it to rocket off on the bike, and start coming off? Or is it to go steady, let your stamina kick in?

So I sat for a few minutes, had a drink, got my breath back. Then I set off slowly. I was telling myself that I had to relax - even though my back was killing me - and that the speed would come. Just take it easy, finish this race. The speed will come all by itself. Whipping Martin's arse will keep for another day. Concentrate on technique - do it right, don't try and do it fast. Fast comes after right.

Oh, and go to the left of that f**king haybale next time.

The Missus, she tells me later, knew that something was wrong for the first 3 or 4 laps. My body language wasn't right, I was slow and tense and hesitant. I was obviously in pain or suffering some other trauma. She knows these things.

Then Martin passed me. Just to make sure that there was no accusations of phantom laps (blogs passim), he held up a finger and shouted "That's number 1!".

Something went click. I don't know if I realised that the ground was more grippy than I thought, or if I was just ready for some other reason, but I just wound up the right hand. I rode a different race from that point on.

The course had more whoops than Track and Trail the other week - there wasn't a single bit of it was flat. It was a constant pound-pound-pound over the bumps, and the little Marzocchis on the front of Goldilocks took them well. the only bit that didn't have whoops was in the trees, and that was polished mud where grip had done a runner. The mud in the trees was so polished and slippery that even the expert riders were crawing through it at 2 miles per hour.

The people who done the course had laid a tree trunk right across the track, and there were two lines over it - no way round it. The right hand line was quicker, but the trunk was higher here. The left hand line was slower, but the trunk was only about 8 inches high. I went for the right-hand line once. The resulting tip-over was painful. The resulting picking up of the bike even more so. My back was reminding me why we don't do these things. It was my first, and only, off of the day. Martin had a completely clean sheet - his first time ever.

My next 5 or 6 laps were faster than my first 3, I was really flowing. I really was concentrating on my cornering - since this is where I lose an awful lot of time. I take corners too slowly. This is a confidence thing, and the speed will come. When you ride a 4-stroke, it is crucial to carry as much speed as possible into corners, because you simply don't have the explosive power on the exit. On a 2-stroke, you can get away with slowing right down because the power of the bike will catapult you out of the exit and along the straight. If I can improve my cornering, then my lap times will improve an awful lot. I think that it may be necessary for me to spend some time up at the motocross track, just practicing corners.

Martin passed me again - "Number 2!". Then, about 20 minutes later, he passed me again - "Number 3!". This didn't add up. It was a 7-mile course, and I was going faster than I had previously, which means that Martin would have had to average something like 100mph in order to pass me in 20 minutes. Even when I got stuck in all that cowshit, it still took him nearly an hour to pass me the first time. Something not quite right here. Martin put it down to all of that course he cut out because he just couldn't be bothered with it, and gave me one of those enigmatic grins of his. He was just winding me up. Still, the lap times will tell - we wait the results.

As I approached the end of my eighth lap, The Missus started jumping up and down and shouting "one more! one more!". I pulled through the time gate with 30 seconds to spare, and got out for a ninth and final lap. I was the last rider out on the course and, strangely enough, this was my fastest lap. It is amazing how much confidence and concentration you get when you only have to worry about what's ahead of you, and not be afraid of what's coming up behind you.

I think that is another one of those great biking metaphors for life - if you worry about what's behind you, then you will have problems - but all of the real problems in your life are in front of you. The past is fixed and cannot be changed, only the future has possibility.

I made a complete mess of getting the bike up on to the trailer - even with Martin's help - because I couldn't do anything with my back. It fell right off the plank. The guys in the truck next to us applauded, then gave us a hand. Couple of Nurofen and a cup of tea later, my back had settled down enough to drive home.

You know that I do a lot of reading about history and stuff. I have never, yet, encountered a situation in History where somebody has got worse because they had a cup of tea. And the cup of tea after an enduro is the finest cup of tea you'll ever taste.

Washing the bike outside the house produced a lovely little pile of cowshit which had to be brushed and shoveled and taken into the woods - about 6 trips in all. It was everywhere. The Missus and I both did it, and she was giving me grief about which direction I was spraying the jetwash in. There then followed a conversation about "you're putting all the shit in the wrong place" and "so where do you want the shit then?". Our new next-door neighbour, overhearing this just as he got out of his car. I wonder what he thought.

So, 9 laps. Martin got 12 - we think - which I reckon would put him winning our class. Barry, on the other AJP, got a DNF. He went over the bars into a ditch and his handlebars came loose. Which, apart from Barry, I reckon that made me last in the class.

Bottom of the class, covered in cowshit, but still very very happy with today's performance. Not just with the 9 laps - the most distance I've covered in a race yet, but also with the way that I am learning lessons. Learning the lesson of Morocco - tired riders get broken bones - for instance.

Only my third time out since being injured, and I am noticing that I am much quicker than previously. Not only that, I am also noticing where I am losing time. Whereas before, I was just concentrating on getting round the course, now I am analysing my riding to figure out where I am losing the seconds and minutes.

Cornering - we know this. I will be working on cornering. Quick cornering is the key to good lap times on a 4-stroke. I need to carry more speed into corners. Couple of trips to the Motocross track I think.

Also, weight. A small 4-stroke bike weighing only 89 kilos will happily pull along quite quickly if all she's pulling is herself and me.

But she's not too happy about pulling herself, me, and enough cowshit to fertilise Hyde Park.

Lesson learned.

The Heroes of The Day, though, were the spectators who waded into the cowshit to help pull me out. Thank You guys.

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