Didn’t really know what to expect this race considering I have been having trouble finding time to get long rides in and have not raced in almost a month. What I did know is that this race was going to be fun since it does not have the technical sections like Landahl, etc. Also, I knew that most of the heavy hitters were off racing in the Subaru Cup…
The field was alright in size, the start was a little hectic being rather short, but we were off into the single track and started to spread out pretty quickly. I settled in about 4-5 or so back (not really sure though, lost track of places rather quickly on this one) behind BrianD and my boy Hoppe. Seems at this point we were in no man’s land (where I usually spend most of my time) between the slower traffic and the super fast dudes.
Hoppe was putting in a pretty good dig at the end of lap one, but think it over heated him a little and I got passed him on lap two. I hit it hard thinking I could catch the lead group and put a little gap on him. When I slowed to recover a little bit, went and hit a little rocky downhill when I heard what I thought was him behind me, turns out GMapes caught me absolutely bombing the downhill. Once by, I took his wheel until about the final climb of lap two where my lack of riding time/fitness started to show.
Lap 3 was pretty uneventful except for the fact that GMapes gaped me and I was caught and passed by another Cat 1 and then Mark Cole on his SS. Damn it, this is a crappy feeling, getting passed and nothing you can do about it.. The Cat 1 passed and I held on his wheel for a about a mile till I was spent, Mark passed and he was gone.
Final lap was also pretty uneventful, just pushing gears as hard as I could without blowing up, passing lapped traffic and the remnants of the Marathon race. Was passed yet one more time, but I had enough of this crap and held on his wheel to the finish. I always look at the numbers to see who was who, knew he was in a different age group, so I did not fret over it much. After the start line, I did not see another person in my age group. Well, because there were only three of us and the winner beat me by 9min. So second on the day, not very satisfied on where my fitness is right now. But who is? Ended up 5th overall out of 19….
On another note, It was sweet to see all the Ethos Racing Jerseys on the podium!!!!! There were also a bunch of folks from Joetown, that’s always good to see…
Damn that was fun though, can’t wait to do it again!!!
I have no pictures or results, will update when I do….
