Sunday, September 13, 2009

Race Report: Psycowpath # 7 The Capital City Challenge

There's not much to say about this race. It was easily the worst race that I've ever had. When we got started I entered the singletrack in 3rd place after the 1/4 mile gravel road start. I was right up with the leaders where I needed to be and was holding on but I knew something wasn't right. The opening section of this new course was really bumpy and it was just chewing me up and I was putting a lot of effort into keeping things moving fast. Towards the end of this opening area before we dumped into the woods I was passed by a rider leaving me in 4th place. I wasn't really worried about it at this point and just kept pushing on. Then I fell apart.

All the sudden out of nowhere I just had nothing left. I couldn't push and I couldn't carry any speed or anything else. I just tried to keep things moving with the hope of things coming around but it never happened I just kept getting worse and worse. My head was throbbing, my stomach was in knots and my sides were just screaming with pain. I have never came as close to quiting a race as I did today.

Shortly before the end of the first of four laps I was passed by a rider leaving me in 5th place. I managed to keep moving in the race basically in survival mode. I just couldn't get out of whatever I was in that was slowing me down so much. I was passed on the 3rd lap by a couple of riders who never should have caught me and I tried to push it to bring them back but just couldn't do it. Every time I tried to go hard I lasted about 15 seconds and then could barely move again. I ended up finishing the race in 7th or 8th place. When I got done I felt so horrible I was so disappointed and almost embaressed by how bad I did that I took off and didn't wait for the final results which is really uncommon for me.

It is driving me nuts trying to figure out what went wrong today. I just keep going over everything in my head thinking about what I did or didn't do leading up to the race. The race was originally supposed to be on yesterday but was pushed back a day cause of rain. I ended up not really doing anything yesterday and kind of just sat around all day. Was that the problem? Was it the 2 beers I had last night with a freind I hadn't seen in a while? In the past 2 nights I had gotten about 18 hours of sleep when I usually get only 6 a night. Was it to much sleep? Did I eat to much this morning and lounge around to long before going to the race? I can't figure it out and it is driving me crazy.

I need to go try to relax a bit know. Typing all this up has me all pissed again. Later.

Harp

PS the only good thing that came out of today was that Paul the best mechanic around and the guy that keeps my slow ass rolling got his first podium spot in the Cat 3 race today. Nice job man.

4 comments:

BB said...

Sorry you were not feeling up to snuff yesterday. Sometimes all the stars are not in alignment. Be it too much sleep, booze, too much rest, not enough rest - who knows? I wouldn't worry about it because you are having a great season. Every race cannot be an "A" race with you at top form.

I couldn't make it with the reschedule due to the rain. I really wanted to do this race and my jaw dropped with the late Friday evening announcement. Saturday would have worked great, but "oh well".

I am coming to the Manawa race for sure since it is a joint Psycowpath/IMBCS race.

Bluenoser said...

Hey, sometimes you're up to it and sometimes you're not Harp. There are lots more races.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

-B

Harp said...

Thanks guys. Bruce wish you could have made it the course is fast and has improved a lot since last year. Of course I hate the course now after yesterday

Cornbread said...

We all have bad days. I wouldn't get too worried about it. If you didn't have a bad day occasionally, that'd be more worrisome.

You've got the aerobic base so take some time and let your legs rest. That's one thing I never did consistently when I first started racing. I always felt I needed to ride hard all the time.

Recharge and you'll come back much stronger.

BTW, sorry about your dog. Hope the doggy comes home soon.