My week leading up to the race looked like this: Mon. and Tues. off after being destroyed at Waco, Wed. 10x1min, Thurs. 4x10min, and Fri. 4mi run with 4x1min sprints. Sat. morning I drove out to Warda with the intentions of riding for four hours. This was in prep for the OC, as I haven't done a ride over two hours in I don't know when. I wound up doing 6 laps, 2 including the field of despair, plus a trip around the start loop and a few minutes of the first woods section. Probably approaching 45 miles? Had a great time and really learned the trail and got some quality trail time on the new bike. After a week like that, I had no expectations for Sunday morning other than to get two more hard hours on the bike. The plan was to ride a steady, building pace throughout the laps, and not worry about the race itself.I went out for my new warm-up run, and the legs were definitely acting like they weren't going to be there today. I ran for about fifteen minutes getting all kind of stupid looks from the racers warming up on the road before returning to the pit and heading to the start. I started at the back of the pack, and entered the woods in last place. I had the woods dialed and was easily cruising behind two guys in my class for a while until I found a spot to pass. I just put it on low Z4 cruise control from there in hopes that I could hold that until the end. I was feeling great and started picking off a few guys in my class here and there. At the beginning of the second lap a group of five 30-39 guys were coming up behind me and took a huge chunk of time between the finish and the entrance to the woods, and then blew by me on the fence line straight where you pop out of the woods for a little bit. When we hit the singletrack again I was back on their wheel with my heartrate DROPPING. I was easily cruising right behind them through the rest of the woods until we hit the fence headed back towards gas pass, when I settled back into my cruise control and they dropped the hammer in the no skills required section to put me off the back. At the beginning of the 4th lap, I was going harder to finish strong and saw 2 guys in my class going around the pond as I was coming down the hill. I caught, passed, and pulled away from them in the woods, and I think I passed two others that lap as well. I was headed back to Gas Pass trying to keep them behind me when I saw Scott Schaefer(friend in the old expert class) up ahead. He dropped in 15-20 seconds or so ahead and I was on his wheel before the switchback. He made some room and I made a clean, but sketchy, pass and was on my way. I stayed steady for the rest of the lap and kept the chasers well behind, putting almost a minute on the guy behind in less than a lap. I sprinted to the finish right behind a guy from the pro class for a very satisfying finish.
(Thanks to Joel from www.bobcat13.smugmug.com for the pic)So this coming weekend is the Ouachita Challenge. I'm pretty pumped about the ride, and especially after feeling the good fitness come around this weekend. This will be the most time I've spent on the bike in a LONG time, but I should be good to go. I'll update after that on how it went.
Meanwhile, Raine is really starting to show and it's so neat! We have our big ultrasound in three weeks, which will be the 20 week halfway point. I can't wait to see the baby and feel it move. That will be incredible!
Trivia: After it worked pretty well for my four hour preride on Sat., I had a deluxe breakfast from McDonald's of all places Sunday morning and for the first race this season I felt strong all the way and didn't puke or bonk. Who'da thunk?
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