State Games Race Report

So this past week saw me reintroduce intensity into my training, join up with my first mountain bike group ride, and race my first mountain bike race of the season.

After hitting some hard intervals Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I went out to Lake Crabtree to meet up with the TORC Wednesday night group ride for the first time. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was great and all the guys were very friendly. It was cool to be with a group of guys to talk about bikes and chat before the ride and then roll out with a group of 15 or so guys onto the trails. Most of the guys were just your average recreational riders, so the pace wasn’t quite as high as I had hoped to begin with. However about a quarter of the way through I moved my way up to the second wheel in the pack just behind the ride leader. After that he saw I could hold his wheel he got progressively faster and faster until he finally just started smashing it. We were leaving the rest of the group behind and going downhill faster than Iv ever went on that trail. It was great.

At one point we rounded a corner and I saw his shoulder catch a tree. The tree began to shake, then I heard a snap, I looked up just in time to see a huge 5 foot limb smash me in the face. What are the chances? Anyway it turned into a hard ride and on the final climb the leader finally dropped me. It was the kind of intensity I was looking for and Ill definitely be back.

On to the race. I guess the report really starts Friday evening when the wife asked me to go out to eat at our usual Mexican spot. I told her I wanted to but I didn’t think it would be such a great idea the night before a race as it usually makes my stomach feel a little off for the next day, but after a while I gave in and we went. It was a great meal, but as usual when the alarm clock went off at 5am the stomach was rolling. I set out and after a little over an hour an a half I pulled in the Hobby Park parking lot just after 7:30. I saw Jim Smalley, official/promoter/good guy to know in the NC mtb community, standing in the parking lot and after a brief chat I went to get my bike ready for my warm up lap. I had got there pretty early so I could get a lap in before the race to get myself familiar with a trial I had never ridden and to have a bit more riding and fun for my 1.5 drive.

The trail was a lot of fun, not the kindof trail you expect in the city limits. It had a lot of technical features with rock piles and drops and flowed well. On top of that it had a sneaky lot of elevation gain, I think almost 1,000 feet in 6.5 miles.  The climbs were all  steep and punchy and I figured I would have no problem just stomping up them come race time. After riding for about half an hour I ran into two of the promoters on the trail who informed me I was going the wrong way. I knew immediately where I had got lost, and it had been a ways back. So my quick warm up lap turned into over an hour ride, but I don’t regret it. This wasn’t a priority race and I really enjoyed getting the extra riding time in on a fun and challenging trail.

As the start time approached I came up to the line and lined up on the front row with a few pretty fast looking riders. The start would go straight up a huge grass hill that would separate us from the gun. As the gun sounded three of us quickly separated ourselves with me sitting in third. As I noticed the guy in front of me was losing the leaders wheel I accelerated easily by him and caught the leaders wheel before we hit the top of the hill. I felt pretty good and as we hit the single track I held onto the leaders wheel as we bombed the techy terrain and left the third rider behind. It was a ton of fun being able to sit at the front of the race, but soon I realized I had gotten to warm on my warm up lap. Those short hard 1 minute hill sprints were adding up and I quickly realized I didn’t have that short top end power back yet. I knew the leader was going to have to slow down or I was going to get dropped soon. The funny thing was that now I was having no problem hanging on the downhills, even making up time, instead of of getting dropped like before. Finally after about 2 miles with my heart rate through the roof, I picked a poor line over a root on a climb and had to unclip to stay up. By the time I got back going  the leader had a gap and I didn’t have anything in the tank to bring him back. I knew we had opened up a big gap on the next guy so I decided to get my heart rate down to a manageable 185 or so and just not make any mistakes and hope the leader did. He didn’t, and I rolled in second in Cat 3 19-39.

                                                           Pic of the Air 9 in its final form

It was a fun race and I always enjoy riding in new places. I was pretty happy with my fitness at this point as it was just where I figured it would be. My time ended up being good enough for forth out of 19 in all cat 3 regardless of age group just 25 seconds off third. Im definitely going to work in a few more mtb races this season.

Next I think Ill head over to the finale of the Ace speedway series next Tuesday. Its fun to race on the track...look for a report next week.