It’s been awhile since I’ve raced on dirt, felt good to be back…sort of. We drove up on Saturday morning to get in a few laps before Sunday’s race. Since I haven’t been on the MTB for awhile I figured there’d be some gear choices and and final adjustments needed. I didn’t feel that great the day before for some reason, I thought that it might have been something that I ate, but didn’t know for sure. We arrived around 2:00PM changed into our gear and hit the trails. The course was dusty and fast and I was running a 34×18 gear which was a good choice given my current level of fitness. I went out for another lap after some changes to the bike which felt a lot better. We set up camp and got ready for the race.
On race day I felt good after some breakfast. I went out for my warm up ride and got back to the starting line just as Don was doing call-ups for the single-speed class, perhaps I should wear a watch. In a few moments the race started but the roll-out pace wasn’t as fast as I thought it should have been so I quickly jumped to the front after narrowly avoiding a crash. I knew that I didn’t have the fitness to stay at the front but given the amount of dust I knew it was the best place to be. I managed to stay with the lead group to the first climb where all of the single-speeders jumped off and ran up. I held my position for the remainder of the lap and then started to get into my pace. I attacked in the woods on the rocky single track only to be out powered on the open sections. Basically, for me, it was a fun race but the first one each year is always a learning process. During the race I felt that I had the endurance but after my two laps I was exhausted, because of the heat, intensity and dust. I don’t understand how the Experts have the fitness to go hard for 4 laps and sprint a quarter mile to the finish. That was one of the best WORS finishes that I have EVER witnessed!
