PORT Macquarie moutain biker English has taken out second place at the World Solo Championships, despite fracturing four vertebrae just 12 weeks before the event.
English, who juggles his training with a fulltime job as a PE teacher at Heritage Christian School, beat more than fifty other riders to place in the 24-hour event which was held in Canada late last month.
“I won the Australian 24 hour mountain bike championships earlier this year and as a result received my airfare and entry to the solo world championships,” English wrote in his blog while overseas.
“In the lead-up to the World Championships, I was still competing in quite a few races but they didn’t seem as important – in fact at the start of the BMC 100, I remember telling myself that this is not an important race and that I should just ride safe.
“When I woke up in hospital 12 weeks before the World Championships with four broken vertebrae I was sure my world championship dreams were over.”
But, many prayers and PT sessions later, English was back on the bike.
He had five weeks off the bike in total, leaving him with just seven weeks to train for the world championship.
“Three weeks out I made the decision to go, thinking I would go over just for the experience and opportunity to wear the Australian jersey.”
However, English is a strategic rider,  a characteristic that paid off in this event.
“I decided I needed to let the fast riders take off ahead and ride my own pace to save my legs as there was so much climbing to do and I wasn’t sure how much fitness I had lost due to my injury.
“After about 30 minutes I was about 40th. Two hours into the race people were dropping back their pace and I was actually making up positions. Four hours into the race I wasn’t riding any faster and had caught up to fourth place. By eight hours in, the rain was pouring down.
“At midnight I had caught up to second place and worked on defending this position for the rest of the race to the finish.”
Congratulations Jason from us all here at OurPatch!