So we got an email from Nick Plumb, my ITM, Martin Jago and I. Went like this:

"Hi Guys,

Hope you had a great weekend.

The guys that were doing our scoring had a query with riders number 152 and 370 - the query was that on one lap they both came through scoring at the same time but there was only one rider - meaning both wrist bands were being worn by the same person.

Could you shed any light on this??????"

Hmm.

So, when Jago picked up the transponder from me and my broken-down bike, he put it on his right wrist - next to his own. When he scroed his own lap, he scored one for us as well. Then we got captured.

So, after explaining this to Nick, he will dock us the mis-scored lap. No harm done. Sort of.

This relegates us to about third from bottom - the two teams below us did one lap each and then sat and drunk tea for the reast of the day. We pushed from 7am till 8pm, quick changeovers and broken bikes, and could have drunk tea all day.

Martin is, to put it midly, not impressed. My ITM is probably equally unimpressed, as am I. Where did we go wrong?

OK, so I say "we", but ultimately this is down to me. My 90-minute lap on the diarrohea-inducing orange KTM didn't help. My sans-footpeg last lap - which took me about a week and a half - didn't help.

At the time, I thought that just finishing the event was an achievement, but now I've had a chance to reflect on the what-ifs. What if my bottle hadn't gone on the KTM and I had charged down the hills as I was doing before? What if I had been able to cable-tie the footpeg? I suppose that this is normal, you're always going to feel that way. Especially when you're in a team. I mean, if it was just me then the result is the result, but to have put in so much effort with my ITM and Martin all day, and ending up with a result like this - makes you sort of, well, ashamed in a way.

I've been riding for over a year now, and perhaps my ambition far outstrips my ability. Perhaps I should take up something more appropriate to my physique and disposition. Perhaps I am just never going to cut it, no matter how hard I try.

That would be one way to go. Then, there's the counter argument which says that I have to keep going and I am not done yet. That, as Zippy says, if I keep plugging away then one day it will just "click" and I'll never look back as of that moment.

OK, so I finished without a footpeg. Does that mean that I have what it takes, keeping going like that? Or is riding without a footpeg just not as difficult as I think it is? Is my 2-stroke strategy the right one, will it make me better or will it make me worse? Am I being irresponsible and selfish, throwing myself around enduro tracks when I have a Missus and Wee Yin who depend on me to look after them?

Questions, questions. Always questions, but never answers. It's at times like this that I start to wander into quantum physics - a nice safe haven of unanswerable questions that have me looking away from the never-ending stream of questions I ask myself.

I tell you what I do know though. I know that I did the best I could do, and gave it everything I was capable of giving it. I know that I really had to push myself to get down those hills after having a fright on the KTM - buttock ski-ing or not. Whatever our result, and its not published yet, it was the very best I was capable of doing in the circumstances.

And, if all you can ever say is that "that was the absolute best and most I could give", then you're not doing too badly.

Surely it's better to give 100% and fail, rather than only give 50% and succeed?

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