Road, Mountain, and Minneapolis

Well, I didn't want to disappoint Vino, so I did both the road and mtb races this past weekend. Here are some race recaps for you to enjoy.

On Saturday morning Brooks and I traveled 40 miles north to Denzer for the road race. His race was in the morning, so we got there early. I watched his road race and registered. He conquered the big climb twice and finished his race...maybe he'll blog about the details. Then we went to Culvers. Then we traveled back to Denzer for my race. There were only 20 racers in the Cat 3 field...we had to do 4 laps of the 12 mile course. We started out with a nice crosswind section that led to the big, mile-long climb. After the first ascent of the climb, I looked back and there were only 10 of us left in the leading group. We finished the first lap and circled back around to start the climb again. This time up the climb a group of 6 riders got a small gap over me and 3 other riders. After the climb, my group was taking good pulls and staying close to the leaders (about 30sec or so). We kept them in our sights for the rest of that lap (I hit 51mph on the downhill section!), and then at the end of the lap, 2 of the riders quit. So then there were only 2 of us chasing down the group of 6 at the front. Needless to say, they started pulling away a bit more. The other guy and I pretty much took it easy for the 3rd lap...we just rode side by side and talked because we knew we weren't going to catch the leaders. At the end of that lap, he pulled off the course too. I decided that I didn't feel like riding the 4th lap by myself...and possibly killing my legs with the winds and another time up that big climb...so I DNF'd. My legs felt strong (no signs of cramping), but I wanted to keep them that way for the mtb race the next day. I would have gotten a decent result had I finished, but oh well. I'm a quitter. :) Then Brooks and I went to Culvers again.

Sunday brought my first mtb race of the season, a WORS race in Lake Geneva. I hadn't done this course before, and it was pretty fun...some good climbs, fun descents, tight singletrack sections, and a rock garden that caused many a crash. The Comp riders had to do 4 laps of the 5 mile course. I lined up in my age group wave near the back, but right after the start there was a decent climb that enabled me to move all the way into the top 5. I felt really good and kept with this group for most of the first lap until we started coming up on traffic from the previous age group wave. This separated us out a bit, but I kept pushing the pace for the next 2 laps, passing riders and not getting caught by any from behind. I was surprised at how good I felt despite it only being the 2nd time I had ridden my mtb all season. Toward the end of the 3rd lap, a rider in my age group caught me and we went back and forth for pretty much the entire last lap. I would gap him on the climbs and he would gap me on the singletrack sections. He ended up finishing just a few seconds ahead of me, but I wasn't sure what place that we were in.

Me on some rocky singletrack.

Just got done clearing the rock garden section.
This guy didn't fare quite as well.

The result:

2nd place in my age group, only 16 seconds behind the winner.

10th place overall out of 108 Comp racers.

This was by far my best overall finish in the Comp category. I hope that I feel that good during the rest of the WORS races...

In other news...Trent and I are meeting up in Minneapolis this weekend to do some mtb riding. We plan on hitting up some new trails and, of course, Lebanon. Should be fun. Then it's back here on Sunday to hang out with Heather for Memorial Day (our 2yr anniversary is on Tuesday!).

Speaking of Heather, she finally updated her blog with stuff on the garden, squirrels in our window flower box, pics of the bathrooms, and an update on Carl, our lovely apple tree.

I want a motorcycle. Just a small 250cc one to commute to work on and run errands with. It gets 75mpg!! I better start saving some $.