I always seem to talk about how the weekend flew by with so much excitement and all. This post will be no different.
Some fast crusing in Minnesota.
Stop number one on the weekend was in Inver Grove Heights for the MNSCS opener at a brand new venue. It’s always good to line up with familiar faces after racing a bunch of ‘numbers’ out west. Around here, you get to know everyone’s story which makes the racing more exciting at times. This race was super-tough, (as if any mtb races are easy), but honestly this one was different. The flat terrain forced you to pedal the big ring the entire time. I was looking for every opportunity to coast out there, but I never found a good one. The suffer-o-meter was cranked pretty high as I rolled around the course cutting my own wind for a majority of the six lap raced. I crossed the line in 8th; respectable, but not what I had hoped for. Perhaps my legs were tired from the Thursday and Friday interval workouts where I was doing new personal best wattages…
I must say that Doug was absolutely flying out there, the Moore boys have hit the nail on the head with their season preparations and Justin Rinehart was rallying pretty dang hard. Good thing I’m not in semi-pro having to race him at the norbas!
Cresting the climb at Alpine Valley.
After this Minnesota madness, my dad and I toured HWY 94 to southern Wisconsin en route to the Alpine Valley WORS. My legs were quite heavy from the race and kept me up a little that night before I finally fell asleep. By Sunday morning the recovery process had done its trick and I was feeling up to the challenge of second xc event in as many days. The race was going to be a gun fight with other Norba riders Tristan and Matt Kelly toeing the start line along with the usual suspects Brian Matter and Doug Swanson. At the top of the start climb I knew that it was going to be a good day on the bike as I was firing on all cylinders. By the end of lap one Doug and Matt had opened up a gap while I chased them with Tristan in tow. Laps two and three Tristan and I would trade pulls at the front, but we were never really going that hard. Perhaps we should have been hitting it a little harder, but we were still pulling back Matt and Brian wasn’t catching us too quickly. By lap four we had the gap to Matt down to twenty seconds and Tristan kicked hard to make the catch. At this stage of the race the lap traffic was thick and helped to exaggerate the gaps between us. About as soon as Tristan went for it, B. Matter rolled up behind me and the racing was on for the fifth and final lap. Brian is the authority at these last lap, high lap traffic situations and he knew enough to get past me before entering the final ribbon of downhill singletrack. His tactic proved successful as we finished 4th and 5th on the day. It was a successful day for me just to be riding with these guys at the front end of things and to be feeling as comfortable as I did out there, especially after three hard days of riding. It was great to have the support of everyone cheering out there and especially great to have my dad along doing an awesome job of feeding, cheering, and picture taking. This guy knows how to multitask! It’s so great to be racing on ‘home turf’ even if it was a eight hour drive home, thanks in part to a two-hour accident clean up delay near Baraboo.
Piloting the Sewanee across a bumpy ski run.
Confirmation that the training works can be hard to come by at times, but this race is all the evidence I need to keep at it. Each week I continue to race stronger so I’ll keep riding this trend throughout the season if luck goes my way. Keep it Real, TJ
Entries (RSS)