Still no response from Ken. I thought threatening to take my "political captial" to the other side would have spurred some action. Oh well.And now back to our irregularly scheduled program. Going, going, going. That is all I've been doing. In fact, I'm almost gone. As in my legs are almost gone. 5 weeks in a row of racing and two of those weeks were Saturday and Sunday races. One more to go. Luckily it's just a Saturday race.
Last weekend were the races up at Eldora. Good weekend of racing. The short track (STXC) was on Saturday and the cross country (XC) was on Sunday. There are typically big mud bogs that I take a bath in at the top of the XC, so I asked a couple of guys that had pre-ridden the course the state of the evil pits. Apparently it hasn't been raining much up around Nederland, so they were pretty dry and rideable. Definitely good news. The bad news is that the discussion of rain brought in a few thunder clouds that held rain. Those thunder clouds interrupted my warm up for the STXC, and you definitely need a good warm up for those races. Luckily, everyone was going through the same thing.
The usual suspects were at the start line for the race. The gun fired (well the announcers mouth fired), and we were off. Eventually the lead pack thinned out to me and 3 or 4 other guys. I knew what they were all capable of doing in a race except for one guy that was new. Well, the new guy seemed to be getting a little tired at the top of the short climbs. Me being the brilliant tactician that I am decided to attack over the top of the hills. I got a gap that would last about a half a lap but eventually be reeled back in. With two laps to go, I made another move that didn't stick and new guy still look tired. 1 lap to go. Mr. Tired New Guy pointed out that I was a fool and took off. His attack stuck, and I ended up 2nd. Again.
I waited for results. They were posted. Turns out this time they were splitting up the age groups (30-34 & 35-39) for results even though we all started together. Mr. Not So Tired New Guy was in the older group. It end up I took the win. Kind of anti-climatic, but I'll take it.
I've been having this issue with not being able to eat enough food before my races. I wake up starving in the middle of the night before races. I pound as much food as I can down my throat before the race, and I still get these stupid hunger pangs. This happened in the Nathrop race when I bonked. The funny thing is that I'm gaining weight as the season goes on.
Same thing happened to me Saturday night and Sunday morning. I ate all the way on the drive to the race. Ate some after I got there, and the pangs eventually went away. Well, the pangs decided they like there new residence within my belly and reappeared on the 2nd of 4 laps of the XC race.
I was sitting in 3rd position when my friends returned. You don't have much choice at this point. You just gotta keep going, so I tried to zone out. To my surprise I was able to do so. I had a couple of gels and kept going. I eventually passed the 2nd place guy and still had 1st place in sight. On the fourth lap, I picked it up a notch, and on the final steep climb, the orange on the jersey of 1st place was getting closer and closer. I thought to myself, "don't let him look back, don't let him look back." As those thoughts were running through my oxygen deprived brain, the leader looks back. DAMNIT! He steps on the gas at the crest of the climb and gets a little more time on me. I couldn't seem him any on the descent, and it decided to start raining again. There was one section of the trail that kind of dipped down. Above the dip was a nice network of tree roots. The previous 3 laps I had railed it over the top of the roots. Since, I was chasing hard to try to win, I decided to give it another go even though they were wet. Just as I though, "I shouldn't be doing this," physics taught me why I shouldn't have been doing it. My tires slid out from under me and I was on the ground. I check the bike, and it's still in good shape. I hop back on and think, that's it. I'm kind of cruising the descent at this point, but when I turn on to a road from the singletrack, I see the orange again. I pick up the pace. Get closer and closer. We go over the steep rollers at the end. I can still see him. We drop out on to the final stretch in the gravel parking lot. I shift to the big ring, get out of the saddle, drop my head, and hammer. Getting closer, closer, closer, DOH!, and I run out of room. Lost by 2 seconds.
The winner was strong that day. Even if I was feeling good, it would have been tough to beat him, and he definitely deserved the win. Hats off to Brian.
This past weekend was the Deer Valley National Mountain Bike Series (
NMBS) race. This year I decided NMBS races weren't a priority for me. Honestly, the local races are more competitive. That mindset combined with the satisfaction of the results at Eldora created a bad concoction on July 4th. I forgot I raced bikes and remembered what I was like in college. Lost of bad food, beer, and liquor. Not exactly the best race prep. Let's just say my riding the next few days wasn't up to snuff.
Oh well, you gotta let loose every once and a while. I'll spare you a lot of details about Deer Valley. I didn't really like the course. People usually rave about it, but a course with around 30 switchbacks in it isn't what I call fun. People also said it was a climbers course, but the two big climbs couldn't have been over 10 minutes long a piece. In my opinion, it is more of a big power course.
I got a good start, but the legs didn't feel too good. They definitely weren't as sharp. Could it be, BOOZE? Maybe. I kept getting stuck behind slow descenders on the long stretches of singletrack (with switchbacks). At that point the leader was in front of the people I got stuck behind. Would have it made a difference had I not gotten stuck behind the slowbies? Probably not. It just wasn't my day, but I ended up 3rd anyway. That's a big improvement over last year. Last year: bad day = DFL (dead fucking last). Or close to it anyway.
I've got a bunch of bronze medals from races this year. Does know how much faux bronze is trading for on the open market?
I guess it's time to start considering an upgrade to semi-pro before I start getting too much shit from my fellow racers. I'll see how the next race goes.
