Concentration

Two days ago, I had a practice day on a hard pack track (soil dirt with stone/rock underneath). It's the first time I have riden hard park scince July and I enjoyed it so much.

My speed was acceptable to me because I knew where, I am to improve and I am beginning to reproduce the feelings I had when my speed was at it's best.

I did, however, learn a very important lesson. Whilst I was practicing, there was a small group of riders having a training session. During my 3rd practice session, my concentration went from 'keeping on the correct line' to 'what is the group doing at the side of the track'. My concentration only went on to the other riders for, may be, 10 seconds, however, the consequences after that where that my thoughts went onto telling myself off for letting this happen, which went on for, may be, another 30 seconds. During this time I made lots of small mistakes, missing my line in turns and getting the entry in to turns slightly wrong.

The lesson that I have learned from this experience, through some coaching I have received, from Ashley Scott at Mindracing, is that I need to make sure that next time I practice (and each time after that!), I channel my concentration in to specific areas for each session.