AMBS- Trussville, AL October 9, 2011
Did you ever have that feeling where you knew something good was about to happen to you, and then the shit hit the fan. Well that’s kinda how I felt at today’s race. I can’t say I’m disappointed in the results, ended up 4th overall in single speed open, but a horrible start left much to be desired for this race.
Felt great all week with solid training, rode Friday at Oak Mtn and bike was setting up great with no problems, legs felt really solid, nothing was sore or injured so coming into the weekend I felt like I was going to put up some good numbers for the race. Saturday did a nice 42 miles on the road bike with Alan, Mick, and Jason and although went a little harder than I wanted for a pre-race day ride, felt solid and couldn’t wait to race.
The weather was great, overcast in the mid 60’s, perfect for racing. The call up for single speed came and as I looked around at the guys racing I knew a couple from previous races and knew it would be a fast past to get to the podium but none the less I felt up to the challenge. 5,4,3,2,1, and we’re off. There was a good 50 yard pavement sprint onto the gravel road and I took 3rd wheel and settled in until we got another ¼ mile where we entered the woods, well that was the plan at least. 200 yards into the race, BAMM, chain came off. (Insert whatever expletive here and multiply it by 50) that’s about how I felt. I pull to the side and get out my allen key, the field goes by. Fiddle with it and can’t get it back on, 2 minutes later the next field goes by, (expletive times 100). Keep trying to get my rear wheel aligned, horizontal dropouts are a bitch if your in a hurry, I hear the next field start and they are coming fast up on me. Get the wheel on and immediately attack, any ss’er knows if you get stuck behind the 2’s you are in for a long race and that was the last thing I wanted to have happen 45 seconds into the race. Look down at my watch and my chain drop cost me right at 4 minutes. Great start……Awesome
After several demoralizing minutes of riding 150% out of pure anger I settled down and tried to refocus on my race strategy, which was now not to get DFL in my cat. I got picked off by two Cat 2 guys and luckily that was all, spend the rest of the lap trying to get back on someone’s wheel but found myself in no man’s land for about 30 minutes. As I started lap 2 I finally got my body and mental under control and began to make smart attacks/ recoveries. Started lapping a lot of the slower traffic from the other categories and then came up on a single speeder finally, whew, got the DFL monkey off my back! Passing him gave me a good boost and I managed to pick off several more on the second lap. Third lap I laid if all out, legs were starting to suffer and I pushed the last lap average hr above my LT, which I knew was playing Russian Roulette with the cramp monster but was surprised at how well they held up, staying strong and not losing any power after all I had done.
Kept a good pace until 15 minutes out and set out my attack, my goal was to do a sub 25 minute lap, to get under a 1:20:00 race time, after a 29 min lap 1, 26 lap 2, and was hoping a 25 min lap would put me top 5 at least. The last part of the race was a technical, extremely rooted/ rocky climb of about 8 minutes, then right back down the other side of the mountain with huge winding switchbacks. I managed to pass several more people and laid on full throttle the last 5 minutes. 1:21 and change. Didn’t hit my 25 minute lap but managed to pick off enough people to move into the top 5 and take 4th. Overall I wasn’t happy with my lap times but was really impressed with my fitness and body’s ability to redline as much as I did today, I guess I have more matches to burn than I thought. I guess cyclocross training is paying off more than I thought it would. Racing next week in Brookside, AL again for Bamacross #2, should be a lot of fun and a lot of suffering. I saw today that last week’s cx race I managed to place 16th of 29.
I also found out today that the new trail they cut at Oak Mtn for the 6/9 hr race in November is really not single speed friendly, or at least I was told it will take a good amount of practice to learn the lines. Awesome, now I get to suffer that much more come November 12th.
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