since my training has been going so well...ok, since i have felt so good during hard efforts on my bike...i thought i would have a shot at doing some real damage at the norba race in cape girardeau today. i have been riding my mountain bike a fair amount, too, so that can't hurt.
the best laid plans of mice and men. i like that saying. i had all of my ducks in a row for the race, and i suffered like a pig and got 5th. now, i don't want to take anything away from the guys who pummelled me today. dave, john rines, chris, yogurt...they are great riders and were doing it up right today. but i never got a chance to even compete for one of the top places.
there were 21 experts on the line, a great turnout for our local races. i really wanted to bust out with the leaders, so i took the "st. louis start" a little too serious and pretty much blew myself sky high in the first 60 seconds. i never really recovered from the effort. i dropped back to 7th place pretty much immediately, and watched the front 6 guys pull away. i clawed my way back up to the 5th and 6th place riders, then dropped back again. my technical riding was going very well, though, so there was some consolation. but my legs couldn't answer any accelerations, and climbing was just torture. one of the guys in front of me was over his head, obviously going out too hard and dropped. that gave me a little hope and i spied wes from drj yoyoing in front of me. i caught him and stuck on him until the last half of the last lap and then went around. i kept him behind me until the last section and took off. i beat him to the line, but he almost caught me because i sat up too early for the finish. so, even though i felt like death the whole time, it wasn't a bad result. my later lap times were on par with the faster riders, but my goal was to RACE with the top guys, and i never did.
i got a big bug in my eye on my pre lap. a thorn stuck into my right index finger and i had to pull it out with my teeth on my first lap. my camelbak straw caught my bars while leaning forward on my 5th lap and nearly pulled the pack off my back. a bee flew into my ear and stayed there for almost a minute, despite my girlish screaming and attempts to extract it with my finger.
yep...mountain bike racing is hard.
4 comments:
well said, brother!
Then bee in the ear part made me snort out loud. Great story.
you thought that race was hard?
you must be getting old...
hehee... of course you know i am kidding. you need some better looking optics.
with all that talk about course records and the way he took off from us, travis almost had me fooled... almost.
dave
seriously, my sorry looking optics could be the culprit. anyone can go fast wearing orange shades, though, so don't get too blown up about it.
i thought about that course record a few times after the fact. records are meant to be broken, i guess.
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