PA Weekend
Permalink | No Comments (0) | Share This
What a great weekend of racing in PA! This was an open weekend for me and I browsed around on various websites looking for some cool races to catch. I managed to find 2 races that I had always been wanting to try; the CAT Classic and the Michaux Maximus. I begged and pleaded with a few other local racers to go along and split the costs. No one was biting…. Somehow I managed to get work in Hanover, PA on monday and was able to write off the whole weekend. Gotta love that!
Saturday’s race was a brutally technical xc race. Not really, a massive amount of climbing but very rocky, tight, and techy. Sunday was the climbing and infamous rocks of Michaux that would be tough.
I arrived at the CAT Classic, Saturday am. I warmed up well, pre-rode the first mile or 2 of the course a few times and had some fun riding the rocky, technical course. There was a decent smattering of pro/semi-pro racers to compete against and I knew I had my hands full. It had been a while since a true xc race (I don’t count Sea Otter, that was a road race on dirt and I was there for fun ;). Meaning fast start, hitting the singletrack in line and throttling it to the end. Well for me, my throttling lasted all of about 250 meters up the first hill. Hmm, I was ok for 249 meters….. The legs just fell apart. Guess I should’ve done my usual day before openers workout. I was forced to skip it due to trying to get everything packed and some family commitments. I chugged on into the course watching the riders dangle in front of me like a tasty orange hostess cupcake for the first lap. After that I was confined to believe that my legs were left somewhere back in NY and were never going to show up. I rode around the course for another lap and decided to pull the plug before I hurt myself trying to ride some of the rocky tech in Death Valley. Course was fun, but man where were my legs??
Drove up to Michaux Saturday right afterwards, set up camp, got some good food, got into a car accident. Just great, dnf and a car wreck. At least the car was ok, mostly hit my driver side rear tire and some other minor stuff. So what would that mean Sunday would hold. I woke up feeling a little better and deciding to just wash Saturdays efforts away, and just go ride my bike and have some fun. A few big names on the start line, the Trek boys, Harlan and even fellow 29er member T.J.. Race fired up a nice little fire-road climb, dang I started to slog, oh wait a downhill. I just fired on all cylinders and regained everything I lost. I saw the first group go into the singletrack and was shortly behind in the 2nd group. The first section was super twisty and fun and I made my way through the group and to the front and put some distance between myself and them. I was feeling great and riding strong. 20k in or so and had been chattering along on the rocks for a while and hear a nice grinding noise out of the crank. Thought I had a rock caught in the chainrings. Stop and find a bolt had worked its way loose, fought to put it back and finally just yanked it after losing all my spots I had worked hard for. Jumped back on and railed it for a few more before I heard the sound again, whoops forgot to check if the others were tight. Took my time tightening them up (1/8th of a turn at a time is all I could manage without the right tools). That took what seemed like forever. Got back on and just jammed it.
I pulled a few spots back, but mostly just singlespeeders that had passed me. I was having fun on the course and feeling pretty good. Especially the last 20-25k of the race. Felt like somehow I found an extra gear and was just flying (maybe the caffeinated clif bloks?) I railed the last section of singletrack up on the ridge. It was a blast just playing in the rocks and ripping it up. Felt like everything was just dialed and the Superfly was loving it. I came into the last feed zone and figured I’d better grab some water as I only had a little left. As they filled my bottle, they said only 3 miles to go. With that I grabbed the bottle out of their hands and ripped it as quick as I could. I was flying up the final fire road climb, feeling better and faster with each pedal stroke and gaining huge grounds on the riders in front and behind me. Hit the last corner and crossed the line around 5:11 something for 15th, 25th Overall. My clock read 4:56 something…. which wouldv’e been 5th Age/7th Overall. Good to know that the form is coming along!
A week from today is the Farmall series, time to hone the anaerobic skills!
