This past Saturday was round 7 of the UFD west series and my fitness seems to be going pretty good right now so I thought I would give it a go. A few pluses to this race...1. It started at 9:00am which is huge considering the weather we've been having lately. When the gun went off it was about 78 degrees, had it been a traditional start time, noon, it would've been about 90. 2. It was on a Saturday, which leaves Sunday to get recovered, which makes Monday that much easier!!
I'm a big believer in course inspection and this race was no different. I had the Friday off before the race so away I went. That was pretty uneventful until the last 100 yards of single track...I was riding fairly slow, my left pedal hit a rock which pushed me across the trail where my bar end hooked a tree and down I went...I got a little beat up, not bad though, the worst of it, and continues to get uglier, is where my bar hit my quad. I have a softball sized bruise and keeps gettin gnarlier by the day!! Here's a pic...
The good thing about this ugliness is it doesn't hurt to walk or ride so no worries!!
On to the race...I get to the venue with plenty of time to get squared away so no worries there. My warm up consisted of riding the first mile of single track and then to the start line. The promoter started all classes of experts together, of which there was 23...so much for knowing who to try and beat to the single track...The start was about 150 feet of gravel onto a grass hill which led to the single track.
GO!! As of late I've been pretty good at nailing the pedal on the first try...not this day! I think it took 4 tries on loose gravel to nail it down...so much for a good position in the single track...BAH!! I hit the woods in about 15th...LAME!!
The first lap rolls by uneventful and the train is going fast enough that I'm sort of content. The course included about a half mile section of gravel road with 2 climbs on it this led to a fairly long single track descent, which was nice!! The rider I was following wasn't rolling quite as fast as I would've like so I say to him "c'mon man, this is the easy money part we gotta go"...he kindly obliged and picked up the pace.
Lap 2...I finally got passed the 2 riders in front of me and away I went. I was starting to suffer a bit and that had me all over the trail when it got technical...this lap was by far the toughest from a stay focused and keep moving through the technical standpoint. To say I was having issues is an understatement!!
Eventually I settle into a decent rhythm on laps 3-5. I consistently turned 24:00 minutes on each lap until the last one. It dropped to 25:00...I think that's because of lappers, my left quad trying to lock up on me, and my focus going away quickly!! I managed to pull my head out and get through the last lap unscathed and dab free in the technical which made me happy!!
I finished pretty strong. Again, I had no idea where I finished until Mr. Prosser, who finished 4th, comes up and says to me "did you get your money"? I said no, I hadn't looked at the result yet. To which he replied with a smile "you finished 3rd, you put 5 minutes on me you fucker"!! I was like SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!! I had no idea!!
There you go now you know...3rd in class and as far as I can tell 7th outta 23...not a bad day at all!!
E
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