Psycowpath #2 Swanson River City Shootout

The race started as planned today at Swanson Park in Bellevue NE. Got up about 8 today and had plenty of time to get my stuff together and ready for the race. It's nice to be able to get a good nights sleep and then time in the am to get ready without being up super early and rushing around. I even had time to give the bike a good cleaning (clean bike is a fast bike).

It took me a little longer to get to the track. I got there and had under 2 hours before the race starts. Not ideal for me. By the time I got signed in, changed and ready for a warm up it was an hour and fifteen minutes before the race. I took my time on my pre race lap to really check out the course. I raced it last year but this year it was going a different direction and it changed everything. I have to say though that I love this course. It's got a nice mix of different terrain, climbing, descending and technical sections.

After my pre race lap I talked with my buds Ryan and Rob to see how they did in the beginner category (congrats Ryan on the 2nd place finish) and then I went to eat. It was only forty five minutes before the race and it was a mistake. I payed for eating to late later.

Then it was time to line up. There was 30 people lining up in my category. It was very crowded and I was in the middle. When the whistle blew I shot off and got towards the front and was in about 5 th place when we hit the single track. On one of the first steep climbs a guy in front of me wrecked and I got stuck on him and about 4 guys got around me before I could get up the hill and back on my bike. Then I was off and started to pick people off and was running pretty good. On a section where you drop into a ravine and have to grab the breaks hard and then go directly back out I hit another guy who didn't make it but this time something happened and my back tire would not move. It was still pretty early on in the race and I think I got passed by about 20 people while standing on the side of the track trying to get my bike to work again. I'm not sure what I did but it was rolling again and I was off but at this point I was far behind and was playing a lot of catch up and then my stomach started bothering me bad. I was feeling like I was about to blow all over my top tube which was slowing me down. I just kept sticking with it and by about 1/2 way through my second lap I was feeling ok and was riding a lot better.

On my third and final lap I was feeling good and thought I might catch some more people until I got to the same section where I had problems with my bike and the same thing happened again. So again I was trying to fix my bike while everyone else just kept going past me. I finely got it going and I was off to try and salvage a decent position in the race and ended up picking off a few guys and passing a bunch on the last sprint for the line and ended up in 13th place. Nothing to be to proud of but at least I stayed in the top 1/2. It's really frustrating though cause I think I had a shot at doing a lot better if I had not had the problems with the bike. Hopefully the new one arrives soon. I think the back wheel and brakes on my current bike are pretty shot. It's not really a bike built for racing so I'm not surprised.

Only 2 weeks before next race. It's a 6 hour endurance. Hopefully it goes better. Later.

Harp