A lot has happened since the Ouachita Challenge. LOCO Fest was my next race. They got a LOT of rain two days before the race so the course was pretty muddy. They shortened the laps to remove the worst sections, which I was very thankful for. It turned out to be a 2+ hour race as it was so it would have been really long otherwise. It was only me and Bryan Fawley (Orbea/Tuff Shed Pro) in my age group so the results were a foregone conclusion there, but we did start with the 30-39 group so I tried to ride with some of those guys. I spent the day at the back, battling with my friend Lynn Gray over next to last place overall. He would pull away on the climbs and power sections, then I would pull him back on the flowy and downhill sections. We did this until we had about a half a lap to go, I let him get a little too big of a gap through one section and then I started to kind of fall apart and couldn't pull him back. It was fun while it lasted though.

Next up was a local race put on by GHORBA at the Cypresswood trails. The format was eliminator style, with an opening time trail to seed all the racers into categories and heats. The heats generally had 4 racers, and the top 2 advanced until there was a final heat in each category to determine the overall winners. I really like the trails at Cypresswood, they're all flow and the race course just had a little bit of power sections at the beginning where I could hang on until the singletrack. I wound up sweeping the day, winning the time trial, my first heat in cat. 1 and then the cat. 1 final. I did crash in the final and tweaked my front wheel pretty badly but was able to finish the race on it.

One week later Richard and I went up to Dallas to race the TMBRA race there. We drove up Friday afternoon, I didn't feel great on the way but attributed it to a random case of carsickness. During our preride it was really hot I still didn't feel great, but we were mostly taking it easy anyway. Then Richard's chain exploded and we had to call it quits, which I was mostly thankful for as bad as I felt. I had a pounding headache the rest of the evening and then that night I had awful nightsweats until about 2:30AM. I still tried to race the next day, pretty much all I did was ride around to finish. Turns out I was coming down with the flu. It took me out the whole next week, all I did was lay around with 102 fever until Thursday or so. I finally started coming around to go to work Friday for a while. I didn't really feel like riding until the next Wednesday. I was still suffering though with a super low energy level, but I needed to get back on the bike so I just tried not to overdo it.

Rocky Hill, the TMBRA finale' was 2 weeks after the Dallas race where I got the flu. I wanted to race, but I was still pretty down on energy, and my fitness was terrible from the lack of riding. I went out and finished, somehow managed to do so ahead of one person in my class. I felt like I was really only about 75% but it was nice to finish out the season.


The following weekend was another GHORBA race. This time at the Justin P. Brindley trail in Sugarland. I still didn't feel like I had all my energy back after the flu, and my fitness was even worse having not ridden at all the week leading up to it. This is a short race, lasting less than 7 minutes, with about 4 minutes of singletrack and a long finish stretch on a gravel/grass path. This always works against me as I'm just not a power guy and I always get beat on the finishing straight. I decided to ride my hardtail rather than the BMC, feeling like it would pay benefits on the finish stretch larger than the extra speed in the singletrack the BMC would give. I felt a bit squirrelly in the trail since I hadn't ridden that bike on anything other than road for a long time but I got through ok. I was 5th in the time trial which put me about the middle of the cat. 1 division. In the first heat I knew I needed to get a gap in the trail on a couple of the guys, so I made a sketchy pass in the first corner to lead us around and it went according to plan, but I had 2 able to stay with me. When we got to the path the strong roadie in the group, Don, immediately dropped me, and the other guy drafted me until about 100m and then went around. Luckily we went fast enough that I was granted an advance to the 2nd heat due to our finish times. This heat was with Nathan Winklemann (Pro racer) and Don from heat 1. I had kinda gotten an uncomfortable stomach between heats and basically counted myself out from the start. I followed Nathan through the twisty singletrack pretty easily until we got to the power section of the trail and he pulled away. Then Don dropped me hard on the path and I soft pedaled to the finish. I probably could have gotten into the final based on time if I'd gone hard so I have only myself to blame for that.

This brings us to this past weekend. My little brother got married up in Monroe, LA and we went up on Wednesday to hang out and help get ready for the wedding. Since Monroe is only 30 minutes away from Ruston we stayed with Raine's parents and I got to ride some laps out at Lincoln Parish Park. This is undoubtedly my favorite trail, I love riding there and this trip was no different. I had finally started feeling like my energy was coming back and I was able to turn some decently fast laps all weekend without feeling like I was at race pace. I got 2 on Thursday, 1.5 on Friday and another 1.5 on Sunday before we left. My fastest lap was on Sunday, and it included a 30 second stop to try to move a down tree. Got stronger in those few days! I even scored a few KOMs on Strava. I already held some of them, but it was good to see me going faster than I have before! Baby girl is due in just 7 weeks so that will probably be the last time I get to ride there before the race in the fall. It was good to get in some good laps and dial the trail back in.

Speaking of baby girl, she IS due in just 7 weeks! We're getting excited, and scared-er, but I know it'll all be good. We've got her room almost ready for her to come home, with just a little bit more to do. Then it will just be the waiting. Raine is still doing good, just tired a lot. Ben is still growing like a weed. He was the ring bearer in the wedding, and he was having a grouchy day so we couldn't get him to go down the aisle by himself. Raine was a bridesmaid and I was a groomsman and we got to walk down together, so he walked down holding my hand. It was very sweet us all getting to walk together. Raine looked beautiful as a pregnant lady in a black cocktail dress!

There is one more GHORBA short track race (I think) before the summer MTB break. Hopefully I can keep riding and build some good fitness for the fall season and cyclocross. I'm not sure how much I'll get to race with the newborn in the house, but I'll take whatever I can get and hopefully have a better season than I did this spring.