Night time trial: My first time riding at night, ever. Lights on the bars and helmet.
This is the only part of the weekend I'd like to have back - I definitely left some minutes out there in my tentativeness. The course is 3.5 miles of pretty true singletrack. Pretty wild racing at night - eerie and lonely. I got passed by the winning duo team, who started nearly 5 minutes back, but otherwise was out alone the whole time. Finished 4th out of the solo women.
Enduro: It was frickin' hot on Saturday. I did better with nutrition and hydration than at Iron Hill or the Stoopid, aided by a fully stocked pit and a pit crew who lubed my chain when I was gulping coke (thanks Shea!). A spare water bottle every lap for dumping over my head certainly helped. Heed, Cerasport, margarita shot blocks, and PBnJ were the calories of the day.
I started solid, even doing a couple of proper cross dismounts on a few of the ~8 times per lap I was off my bike. I was into my endurance pace by the second lap when I started crashing. Now, I haven't crashed a ton this year in races, but I might have made up for it on Saturday.
- I crashed on a switchback.
- Several laps later I crashed on the same switchback.
- I laid the bike down (and myself) in the gravel road at the bottom of a steep downhill.
- I crashed over a log.
- I rode off the side of the downhill on a big log-over.
- I clipped my handlebars on more than one tree and got misdirected into the woods...
After about the 3rd lap, the other women similar in speed had separated a bit, and it was just me and some guys. Lap after lap. I was on pace to put in 7 laps and did. And I hit my average lap time even on lap 6, so maybe I'm starting to figure this endurance stuff out. 6th for the day behind some very experienced ladies.
Short track: An early morning thunderstorm woke us early, but I went back to sleep until nearly 9. Short track wasn't until 11:30, but there was slow downhill racing and huffy tossin' to watch in the interim.
My legs felt a little tight, but my butt and banged-up knee were not at all happy with the idea of getting on a bike again for 30 minutes of all out effort. It felt great, though. We raced all at once, so I got to knock elbows with the guys, and got taken out by one on a tight pass. I thought I was third, holding off Nicole during the last lap by digging deeper. The women's leader lapped me at the end of the race - but then when results went up I saw that actually one of the fast chicks was behind me the whole time and I was 2nd from the start. It was nice to end the weekend with a podium in one of the stages.
I wound up 4th in the GC. Prizes only went to the top 3, which I would say was the only bummer of the weekend. It's an expensive weekend as races go and for the solos I was expecting they might fill the field out a bit. But super worth it. I'm in for next year if anyone else wants to join us for some rassin', campin', beer drinkin' fun. Shea might look for a relay partner - turns out I'm too stubborn for that relay stuff just yet.
I think we'd kick ass as a relay team...just sayin :)
ReplyDeletepretty sure you're right :) - remind me of that when Baker's dozen is coming... pretty sure 9 hours is my solo limit.
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