I guess it’s that time of year for mountain bike racing, eh?
In Race #3 (my first in the series), I fared pretty well, but my day was marred by not knowing the course and having an early [light] spill that put me behind the pack. This time around, it was a different story.
As I had only been at one race and didn’t place particularly well, I didn’t have enough points to get lined up on the front row. A slight disadvantage due to the course design (very few passing positions), but after the start and pump up a hill, I found myself around 7th or 8th place.
On the first lap, I made some some stellar racing moves (aggressive, but within control), picked off a handful of folks (sometimes in one go), and found myself in 3rd. Unfortunately, I wasn’t putting much of a gap on the folks behind me due to two small mishaps, but I also wasn’t an idiot like last time and give away any spots because I’m a nice guy 😛 That turned out to be a smart move (I’m learning something!?).
Starting the 2nd lap, I could see the racer ahead of me (had no idea what place he actually was) and knew the second lap is where my fitness would give me the advantage. I ever-so-slowly reeled him over the course of the lap, overtook him, and then maintained a 5-15 second gap on him. Based on the speed at which I caught an passed him, he really picked it up after I got by… forced me to do the same. I never did see the first place finisher so I didn’t bother to really pour it on… Will be interesting to see how far ahead he finished. In the last race, he was 1:20 ahead of me. I could have probably pumped out another 20 seconds or so, but I’m pretty certain he had a much larger gap than that so it was a very solid win on his part.
So… I got 2nd and a sweet medal for my efforts. I don’t know my exact time, but it was probably around a 35:52 w/ 18:28 and 17:24 splits (my GPS time turned out to be ~30 seconds slow last race so that’s not an official time on my part, but I’m not sure how it could be wrong [or was last time]). With a podium finish and this being the final race of the series, I’ll be moving up to Sport (intermediate) class next year. My time yesterday indicates a mid-pack finish so the outlook isn’t too bad. Heck, if I put in some good training in the meantime, I may even be looking at some more podiums!
Up next is another mountain bike race this Sunday at the same location, but with a different course. It’s with the same group that runs the 12 Hour. I’m again registered for Beginner and am going to stick with it because shouldn’t we all enjoy a year of competitiveness before moving up a class? Kind of a reward for putting in the work to get there, no?
I’m absolutely loving mountain bike racing… I ride a high the entire rest of the night after these relatively short outputs of effort. It’s a high I don’t get from running or road cycling (maybe a different story if I raced?)… HUNGRY FOR MORE!
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