7 / 60 MTB Geared Open
@65 / @500 Overall
3 hours 17 minute
Nutrition: Cera Sport and Pro Bars
Strava Link: http://app.strava.com/activities/115669669
I registered early for this race due to some peer pressure and hearing what a fun race this was. I was told don't worry about that word cross in the title you can ride your mountain bike. This race crept up on me and I found myself a week out from it. I started hearing people start the tire and weather talk. Lance gave me some advice of putting cross tires on my mountain bike, it was the way to go. Well I don't have cross tires so I borrowed some from Shannon, this being done in the fine time of two days before the race. Shannon told me he didn't buy the tubeless version on accident and hadn't had good luck with the bead being strong enough. I didn't want to chance burping my tire so I went the semi safe route and threw a tube in hoped not to flat.
I lined up on the front lines with Adam and John. I knew nothing of this course except we start with a neutral roll out up some steep road climb through some parking lots and dump on some trail and go. There wasn't much neutral about this roll out, we started and the hole shot race began. I see Adam shoot up front, I hit a couple muddy ruts, but can't swerve because I would take someone out, before I know it I am sitting somewhere around 20 back. We go through the parking lot, going hard enough to keep your position but you really can't gain anything. I don't know when neutral rollout stopped and racing started because it was all a pretty hard push.
Lap one was just hard going effort the whole way, Coop had told me that the year before he tried to hold the lead pack and blew up and hated the second lap. I figured I would take this advice and go out hard, see when I break and hope I can hold on long enough. Okay, Coop's advice was just something in the back of my mind, your second lap might suck.
Quickly the group split like our Wednesday night team ride on our first climb, the real lead pack and the chase lead pack. I was in the chase lead pack and could no longer see Adam. We took our turns pulling, getting dropped here and there catching back up, it was a fast hard moving group. I did find while catching up was hard to do from a power point it was so much easier to corner when you didn't have five people trying to take the corner differently. Cornering is what seemed to always catch me back up to someone to draft back up to the pack.
We finished the first lap and slammed into the back 8 mile stretch before starting our last lap. 4 miles into the back half I hit some nasty rocks going through a creek crossing, came out hoping for no flat.... not the case, I had seen a lot of flat fixing going on and now it was my turn. I pulled off to the side to do my tube swapping. I watched a bunch of the race pass me, first Coop, later Pitas. Pitas was about a minute before I jumped back on the bike, I knew I could catch back up to him. I charged hard once getting changed. All I could hear was Pat's advice, when you get dropped (or flat your tire) drop your head, time trial, and try to catch up. I had a pretty good idea catching up that much time was a lost cause now. I was living in high zone 4 to zone 5 with those guys and still had another 2 hours to go
The hard part of falling back in a race to a flat is no one is really going your desired pace when you start back up. You are left hammering and getting no drafting support. As I came to the parking lot to start my next lap I ran into someone who flatted near me. We started working together, we worked so well that we missed a turn on the roads, this is where my spirits now really started to drop. I almost threw in the towel as I was near the start-finish. We saw some people rode over and asked if they were on their second lap, they said yes and we rolled on. My motivation plummeted more when I rode up on Pitas, who I had already passed since flatting which added to my knowledge of lost time to a wrong turn.
At this point I kind of counted "my race" somewhat shot, so I decided I would help Pitas as much as I could. He was racing single speed and so I figured I could lend some support. I was hoping that just hanging with a good team member and lending some good pulls could help raise my spirits. So I took on as much pulling as I could. I found out Pitas was trying to shake off a fellow SS racer, I think he took good advantage of the pulling to where he planned his attack, and when he took it, he put a big gap on quick. I was glad had at least provide what I could to this point and hope it helped. I then watch Pitas take off on a hunt for this other guy as I didn't have more in me at that point. I felt bad that I didn't really have much more, but I found myself pretty spent after the first lap and then a lot of pulling the second.
I had about 10 miles left at this point and just started riding somewhat mellow, my heart rate dropped, my spirits dropped, my legs were somewhat shot and my body ached. I knew the last 6 miles was a fair amount of climbing and I figured I would save myself for that. Getting close to this area some guys started passing me and I decided it was time to kick it back up and I put in a good push to the end. I hit all the final climbs nicely and I got to the finish line about 1 second behind Pitas, finished and ate some good food and hung out with good friends.
Once results were posted it was time to learn my lesson. Podium went six deep, I placed 7th and was off by a minute. Later looking at my race data I noticed I did a fine job on swapping my tube in 6 minutes. I did lose about 1-2 minutes on my wrong turn. With all of that, I may have fell off on my desired goal of top 3 and under 3 hour goal, but I let the negative aspects of the day pull me down further. I can say I did go hard for the race and it would have been harder to make up more time than I did, mainly due to catching up that time would mean I would do most of it without shared pulls. I am glad I at least made some good out of my time by helping out a fellow teammate.
