It was a cold morning. But not cold enough to deter me from showing up and participating. Just put on my thermal top and I was good to go. Grabbed my camelback and I was out the door. I arrived and registered and saw some friends and waited for the race to begin.
There was about seven people racing in the clyde category. We were to race two 5 mile laps that included both off road and a paved hike and bike trail. After the expert and sports classes were released they lined us up. I lined up right in the front line. There were about 3 or 4 riders in the line behind us. The countdown began and we were off down a paved straight-away. The racer right next to me shot out like a bat out of hell and I wasn't too far behind. I looked behind me and the other riders were far behind. "Cool, second place so far. The road cycling has helped out" I thought. But how long could this last?
I caught up to the first rider right as we approached the entrance to the first part of the technical trail, Phase 1, but decided I would let him go first. I followed behind but he quickly left me behind again. I remembered some of the things Joshua had taught me a couple of days earlier while riding that same trail. Keep a comfortable pace where you can still push it a little bit more, enter a corner on the outside, exit on the inside, keep pedaling, stand while going over the bumpy sections. The last time I had gone riding with him I tried to pedal hard the whole way but quickly tired and began hurting. I did not want to go through that again since this was a race and would not have a chance to stop and rest.
A short while later I heard the huffing and puffing of riders behind me. They had caught up fast. "Whenever you have a chance", a rider shouted out requesting I let him pass once we cleared some of the tight singletrack we were in. I was holding them up but one rider did manage to get by me. We hit some straightaway on that trail and I motioned for whoever was behind that it was safe to pass. Nobody did, as I had picked up speed on this section I left them behind again.
As soon as we hit the technical portions again they had caught up again and others would pass. It was a cat and mouse game until all but one passed me. I later found out he had DNF'd earlier. I had trouble finishing up the first lap but I was determined to finish the race. "It will all be over soon", I thought to myself. As I was finishing up the first lap I saw another rider walking his bike back towards the parking lot. Another DNF. This could work to my advantage.
I entered Phase 1 again. This time I was warmed up. Something I should've done before I arrived at the starting line. I was feeling alot better this second time. I entered the corners and went over the bumpy sections of the trail. Even got a little bit of air on some of the jumps. I later ran into the first rider who had passed me during the first lap. I continued on and even passed a rider on the return section of the hike and bike. At this point I was in third place but still had one more technical section before the race was over. I tried to put a large gap between us as I passed him as I knew he would have the advantage once we entered the off road trails again. Pretty soon he had passed me up and I lost my chance at winning the third place medal.
I finished at 1:09'51. Fourty-six seconds behind third and almost a minute behind second. While I had the speed, I lacked the technical abilities my competitors had. A warm up before the race would've helped out more. It was a fun race. I plan to ride my mountain bike as much as I ride the road bike. The camelback was too heavy. The one liter bottle of cytomax I had would have sufficed for this race. A tube and CO2 pump stuffed into the jersey would've worked well in case I got a flat. I look forward to the next race. This picture is taken during the up and over return section of the race and was taken from the missiontrails.org website.
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