Saturday I made the 3 hour trip to Ponca Nebraska for the 3rd (supposed to be 4th) race in the Nebraska Lottery Psycowpath Series. My teammate Jesse made the trip with me which was nice to have to make the long drive alone.
We had to head up early since Jesse in his first mtb race was racing the Cat 3 race which starts off at 10 which was cool with me since it gives me plenty of time to pre-ride the course and then chill for a while before it is time for me to go.
When it was time to line up I thought I was feeling ok. They made some adjustments to the original length of the race at the start line. When we first checked in we were supposed to be doing 4 laps which is 1 shorter than normal. After talking to everyone they said we would be doing 5. And then after everything else the official gave us a horrible start pretty much just casually saying "ok your off". I was barely caught it along with several other people and it was kind of a mess getting to the entrance of the singletrack and I had several of the areas best riders behind me and I knew I needed to push it.
Once you get into the singletrack you instantly start going up on a massive climb and I was rubbing tires with the guy in front of me as we kept getting bottled up. After we finished the first large climb I knew that I was going to be in for a long and rough day. My legs were heavy and had nothing in them. I was passed by pretty much most of the other riders in the field and quickly found myself alone which is were I would stay the rest of the race.
I could tell that I have been spending too much time on the road lately and not enough time on the mountain bike. I was contantly mis-shifting, picking horrible lines and having problems on the steep climbs keeping the bike moving forward. I ended up bobbing on a lot of the climbs and had to push the bike up more than I ever had before.
In the end I finished up 12th out of 13. The real frustrating thing is that I know that I can do better and with all of the training that I have done I should be at my peak right know not at my worst. It's also frustrating knowing how well I raced the same course last year and was nowhere near that this year. On this course last year I was able to rock the course in the middle ring the whole time and this year I could only ride the course in the small ring. I have never had any ride where I have had to do that.
Hopefully this was just one of those rare occurances that happens once in while and I can get my act together and race like I know I can.
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