What a great turnout for the Down and Dirty/ MO State
Championship MTB race at Warsaw Lake. I pulled in about an 1.45 before race
time and could hardly find a parking spot. Damn, this field is going to be
deep! Saw the usual suspects out to give me a arse whoopen, but I was
determined to give them a run for their money. It had been a while since I had
a good race effort in my legs with my mechanical at Robidoux Roundup, so I
really did not know what to expect. In a good note, I finally have gotten over
my hamstring issues that have been bothering me the last several weeks.
Race started down a very long gravel road which had rock
pebbles flying around like rocket ships. I personally don’t care much for
glasses for MTB so I was a little apprehensive I was going to get one shot
directly into my eye. I hammered it just hard enough to get in front of a
couple dudes I wanted to, yet behind the guys I knew would be tough to hold
onto a wheel. Minus the guys who just killed it on the start, I was able to
keep up with the main bunch for about half a lap before I started blowing up..
I did not think I was going too hard, but the all too familiar feeling of
misery, aka the full body drain that tells you that your putting in one hell of
an effort, was creeping on me fast. I do have a motto that if you don’t feel
like quitting at some point during the race, then you’re not going fast enough.
Halfway into the first lap is not the time to be feeling this way however. So I
started to back off a little to gain some composure.
By this time teammates Micah and Roger was just ahead of me
and Craig was back (how far I didn’t know). On another note, Doug Long passed
me at this point with what looked like plenty of gas in the tank. I remember
thinking that was pretty impressive. Unfortunately for him, I saw him messing
with a tire shortly thereafter… Anyway, finished out the lap feeling a little
better. Looking back on the race, its not too often that the first lap goes
worse than the last two.
I did lose a bunch of places on the first lap when I fumbled
around on a non-technical section but started to pull a couple of people back
in on lap two. I started feeling like I wanted to put in a couple digs and see
about putting in a decent lap here. I passed a guy (can’t remember who now, it’s
been to long) and remarked to him to be careful as I was bound to blow up
shortly. Little did I know that I was going to mean that literally. There was a
section towards the end where the rocks were just a little bigger and had more
off camber areas to it. I was in recovery mode after a good dig to pass a
couple of people when I clipped a pedal and ended up over the handlebars, face
plant followed by summersaults down a ravine. After checking to see if all my limbs were
still attached I picked up my bike and proceed back to the trail about 10 yards
away, same dude came by to see me in all my glory.
 |
| Can't really see it from the pic, but hit the ground so hard I broke a huge chunk off my helmet. |
Third lap was pretty uneventful, just hammered along as hard
as I could and not blow up. Finished 5th out of 8 in Cat 1 30-39.
Overall Cat 1, 11th out of 28. RESULTS HERE
Teammates did well ,Micah came in 4 min ahead of me for 4th
and Roger came in 1-2 min before me and took 2nd in the 40-49.
There were some fast guys out there that weekend!!
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