XC training

This past weekend I thought it would be a good idea to do some cross-country racing. I've only ever done two of them and actually like them. It's becoming more and more apparent, every month that goes by, that regardless of how much I WANT to ride, I just don't have the hours to put in on the bike to do well at the longer races that I really love. In light of this, I think the rest of my season will have to include short races. No, Lumberjack 100 doesn't really qualify as short but it will be a really fun trip so I'm going to go anyway.

So, onto the XC race. Eddie was traveling all last week and even got sick while he was gone. I informed him on Friday night that I had registered us both for the SERC/Kenda Cup qualifier race at Tanasi..the same singletrack that was used in the Cohutta 100/65. We already knew the trails, and there was "only" a 40-50% chance of rain. Well, I try to be optimistic about forecasts like that but it didn't help as it ended up raining pretty hard..but not for our race. Luckily we went off at 9:30am and the rain didn't start until around 11:30.

Having done a SERC race before, I knew the women (with the exception of two to three of us endurance racers) were going to vote down on the number of laps. The race was advertised as 3x11 mile loops for our class. Sure enough, the group voted down to 2 laps. That would not bode well for me, the more laps the better for me. Still, it would be a good training race and that was the whole point. I didn't care about results or anything except pushing hard and having fun doing it.

I had a good first lap. I was riding in 4th to 6th place trading off with Elizabeth from the GF 29er crew and Amanda from the Grace Law/Trek team. Lap 2 was a different story. Elizabeth and Amanda pulled away from me on the first long singletrack climb. Sometimes I really hate climbing! I would reel people in on the downhills but it didn't matter. I lost about 3 minutes in my 2nd lap and got passed by 2 other people. I was having an issue with my rear wheel coming loose--it happened twice on my 2nd lap--once causing me to crash on a steep rooty uphill section. (BUT!! My new 2010 bike will be ready this week so my 2009 bikes can have a chance to get some much needed TLC)

Other than that, I think I am just not used to pushing myself that hard. If someone was right in front or right behind me I would push myself harder..but when there was no one in sight, I think I would just kind of slack off.

I finished 8th overall, it was a good size field with some really good competition. I was happy with the effort and learned a lot. For some reason, I'm not listed in the results..kind of funny that the same thing happened the last time I did a SERC race. Hmm...chip timing??