Capital City MTB Challenge: Race Report

Back to a real post again. It's been a busy week. Finals Week at the college is always hectic added in with a dose of being busy at Arborlinks means I barely have any time to ride or do anything else.


The race. The race this week was my 2nd to last race of the year. On Friday when I went out for a ride and felt awesome. I was hoping it would carry over to the race. When I woke up on I felt like I had a cold coming on. I was coughing up some gunk and just didn't feel right. I took some alka seltzer cold and cough medicine cause it works and doesn't make me feel weird. After a little bit it started to work and I loaded up my car and took off.

I got to the race site early and chatted with a few friends that were getting ready to do their race and then geared up and did a couple of laps on the course to see how it was. This is a shorter course than were used to. Most of them seem to average around 5 miles. This one was just under 3. The course was in perfect shape for racing. I liked the set up for xc racing of doing more laps on a shorter course.


When race time came I was feeling good but was still in the back of my mind worried a bit about how my stomach was going to feel and what was going on with this cold I had coming on and if it was going to affect me at all.

To start the race we had a 1 mile gravel road section before dumping into the singletrack. This was nice cause it spread out the group. When the gun went off I had a good jump and was heading up the gravel hill in first place. Right before the singletrack a guy jumped in front of me and entered the track ahead of me. He shot off and I was chasing him for most of the first 3 laps. My goal was to keep the leader in sight and try to hope I was in better shape and could catch him in the end. On lap 2 and 3 I was feeling really good and was flowing through the track well. Then right after I got past the start/finish line to start my 4th lap and I felt that my rear tire was squishy and going flat. At this time I started to freak out. The pesimist in me started having the thoughts of my race is over and I'm screwed. I was afraid that if I stopped and tried to change it I would never catch back up but what else was I going to do. I went through about 3/4 of my lap trying to figure out what to do. I got to a section of the course where we crossed a dirt road and I pulled off to the side and started to change it. I took off the rear tire and then realized that I may be able to get bye just putting air in it and hoping it holds. When I was trying to fix my tire Ryan came over and gave me a hand holding my bike up and helped held my stuff while I was all thumbs trying to get it together.


After I got going again I was really pushing it trying to get back some of what I lost. When I was off the bike I was passed my about 10 riders. I made it through most of the lap with the tire staying somewhat inflated. At the same spot I stopped earlier Ryan met me and I put another co2 into my tire and was off to finish the race.

I started chasing the rabbits and got some more spots back. The bad thing was I had no idea what lap I was on. I was so flustered by my tire that I couldn't remember so I asked a guy I caught up to and he told me it was his last lap so then I really bolted and pushed it till the end. The tire held. At that point I had no idea where I finished. I was pretty disappointed that I had felt good but something like a flat tire took me out of a race.


When the results where posted I was shocked to see that I had finished in second place. I didn't see what the split was to the 1st place finished but with all that happened I was pretty happy with the 2nd place finish. One of my major goals for the season was to finish on the podium once so I got that out of the way.

Again a huge thanks to Ryan for the support during my tire work. It was a huge help just having someone there to help.


Here's some pics and a video I took during my warm ups and the early race.

Ryan getting the bike prepped to race
Some sampling of the track
Towards the end we had this tall mowed feel to sprint through.A nice section of double track
Number 241 for the day
Rob during the race.

Turn your head sideways I was holding my camera wrong.

Harp

Finally

Race report to come later.

Short Ride

The original plan for today was to go out early and get a good hard training ride in. When I got up I had a major headache and my stomach was in knots. I tried to get up and do something but it didn't get any better. I tried going back to bed but it didn't help either. So I got up layed around on the couch all morning and eventually I started to feel better. Around 1 I geared up and headed out for a quick ride. I still wasn't feeling 100% and I still didn't feel like eating anything. So I forced myself to eat a bar while I was on my way out. While I was riding I started to feel the effects of whatever was wrong with me this morning. I would go through times of feeling week and then go through times when I couldn't control my breathing and felt like my heart was beating like crazy and my chest hurt. When all that was happening I was getting a bit worried but I kept going. After a while longer I started to feel a bit more normal and ended up having a good ride and felt great by the time I got home.

After the way I felt this morning I guess it's a good thing that the race was postponed to next week. I doubt I would have done very well.

I still haven't decided what I'm going to do tomorrow but I'm kind of leaning towards a 1/2 century ride around branched oak. A trip back to last weeks race course. Hopefully the legs feel up to it, their feeling a bit tired now I'm feeling yesterdays core workout.

Harp

No Race, Night Off, Flood and New Computer

Not much for posting this week. It's been a bit crazy. On Wednesday my wife and I decided it was finally time to get a new computer. Our's was in pretty old and we weren't sure how much longer it was going to last. So we headed to Omaha and picked up a new Gateway Notebook. It's nice to be able to move around the house and still be able to get online. Now I can blog from the couch when I'm in deep recovery. The new comp.

So getting the computer was fine on Wednesday night. The problem was when we got home we noticed a puddle on the basement floor. When we turned on the rest of the lights in our basement living room we noticed that the whole living room was soaked. Upon further investigation we found that the water was coming from our hot water heater in the laundry room was pouring water out of it. So we had to turn off the water to the whole house to get it to stop. We had to go the rest of the night with turning the water off to the whole house as we needed it. It was a nice $500 I didn't plan on spending this month. Luckily on Thursday my kick ass father in law who used to be a plumber took the day off work and came to Lincoln and installed a new water heater.

Good and Bad day today though. The Bad: Race was cancelled cause we've had rain for 2 days solid now and the trails have standing water on them. The race was postponed until next Saturday which means my last 2 races of the season will only be a week apart. Not to big a deal I haven't felt that great this week anyways. The Good: got a call from the Links saying the guests we had for tonight cancelled and I have no reason to work. That kicked ass. I needed the night to get some stuff done and since there is no race tomorrow I needed to get a good weekend of training in before I taper start to get ready for the race next weekend. So tonight I had an awesome night of training even if it was in the house and not outside. I got a 1 hour interval session on the trainer and then I got a full core workout in. The core workout hurt. Reminds me I need to start doing it more. I feel like a little chunky lately and the core workouts should help tighten things up.

Tomorrow it's a full on killer training session on the road bike and then off to the links.

Gotta go and hit the bed to rest up for an early ride.



Harp

09 Marin Alchemist

Came across this article about the new 2009 Marin Alchemist. It's said that the top of the line one the 4.9 has a weight of only 21.8 lbs. That's lighter than my 08 Indian Fire Trail before I've upgraded and lightened it up. I've been thinking about a full suspension bike in the future and this will probably be it.

Race Report: NE State Road Race

Only two words can describe how I did in the road race yesterday: I sucked. Yesterday was not a very good day on the bike for me. I went into the race with my main goal being to stay with the pack for most of the race. I did not acheive that goal. I didn't even come close.

The race started with a 2 mile roll out and then it was on right at the bottom of the biggest climbing section of the race. I did fine through the climb and stayed with the pack for about the next 6 miles feeling ok but I was not very comfortable being so close to so many other riders, some of which were making real bad moves in the pack and constantly bumping wheels with other people. I found my myself drifting towards the back and next thing I know I was out after only about 8 miles. After that I just didn't have the legs to get back up with them and I ended up riding with 3 others for most of the race.

The 3 other riders and me worked pretty well together for most of the race. It was actually good practice for me to get a little more used to riding with others and trading off taking pulls at the front. Somewhere around the last 10 miles of the race I looked back and it was just me and one other rider. Him and I finished off the race together.

In the end I'm not happy with my performance at all in this race. It is serving as a good motivator for me for next season. I will be doing more road racing next season. I need to get out on some more long rides with other racers to get my endurance up and to get more comfortable drafting and riding close to others. A race like I had yesterday for me won't really be acceptable again. I still have 2 mountain races left for the season and know my focus is totally on them. This week is mostly going to be spent recovering from yesterdays "race" and resting up for my race on Sat. My legs feel ok today not really sore at all but my butt is pretty sore. Not from the saddle but with just some muscle pain.

It looks like there is going to be some rain this week so I'm not sure what is in store for outdoor training or riding some more laps on the race course for this weekend.

Harp

I'm doing it again

That's it I signed myself up for another race on my road bike. This time it will be a regular road set up. 49 miles for my class. Should be interesting.

Harp