TJ Woodruff ONLINE

Thanks for the hand up Ty!

What once seemed elusive is no longer so after my first finish in the top 25 of a NMBS XC race. There was no single spectacular aspect of the race, but I was able to keep the hammer down all the way to the finish line passing enough guys along the way. My call up position wasn’t great so the start was mediocre at best, there was no big attack, and there were no technical or mechanical mishaps on my behalf. When nothing goes too wrong I suppose things can only turn out for the best. After the first lap I dangled just in front of a group of like ten guys, but forward thinking kept me focused and I didn’t have to deal with any of them as I kept the pace just fast enough. I focused on the pace and by the time lap three came around I began picking off riders who had previously been riding out of sight in front of me. Crunch time came when I caught Paul and one other rider on south end of the long loop just before entering the most rocky and challenging terrain on the course. As soon as I made contact Paul took control of the pace making and I followed suit knowing that this was a sure fire way to rid myself of all those guys (10 or so) riding in our shadows just seconds behind us. I didn’t hit any of the rocks too hard as we charged to the finish line. I made a conscious effort to ride delicately through the extremely rugged sections after having sliced my sidewall open last year. Paul had enough speed left to hold me off, but I was happy to have matched his pace as we worked around a couple riders in those final minutes. These NMBS races are tough because of the 85 starters there are likely 60 guys gunning for a top 20 or 25 placing, myself included, and we are all riding behind the 25 guys who are going for a top 10 finish. We all set our sights high and its quite rewarding to finish a race in a position that I’ve known I’ve been capable of all along. It didn’t seem that hard, I just did a good job of focusing on the task at hand without getting distracted along the way. Hopefully, now that I’ve been there, it’ll be easier to find my way back into that mix again sometime soon!

Sanjay and Anna kindly put me up at their house so along with Ty and Christine, we had a Wisconsin reunion of sorts. It was a great time and the opportunity to truly relax before and after my races played a big part in how the weekend turned out. Oftentimes it seems that the racing is the easy part when some of the travel logistics can get so complicated and tiring. This time it was made simple and I was able to put all of my energy into the pedals. Thanks again! Christine shot some awesome pictures so I suggestion you check them out here. I have to give some big props to Mike Phillips for his 9th place XC finish. This guy can do it all on the MTB and has officially stepped his game up to another level. Way to go. And filling Mike’s semi pro shoes was NMBS rookie Tom Bender, winner of the STXC event. Nice! Of course Jenna and Chloe both turned in some great results too, but for them that’s simply business as usual.
Now it’s back to reality until Friday. It’ll be a busy week at the office before I fly to WI for Tristan’s big day. Enjoy! -TJ

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Race Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.