Talk about middle of nowhere. The location is only two miles from the Utah/Colorado border, and the only semblance of civilization was the tents and structures brought in for the race.
That, and the huge cellular tower that's about half a mile away from the parking lot...which means 3G coverage is darn near perfect. Strange.
Tyler Eaton and I headed back to Rabbit Valley for the XC race on Sunday morning. Got to the spot at about 10:30, which was perfect for a 12:15 start. I get into my usual routine of pre-race fueling and warming up, and at about 11:50, the starter announces that the race was being pushed back to 12:45.
This totally sucks because, as a racer, I'm just looking for consistency. I have my pre-race routine, which I start about an hour before the actual race. When the start gets moved, it throws the whole schedule out of whack. Not to mention that food is a big deal, and at 12:15, I was alright not eating a whole lot after breakfast. With the extra half hour to kill, I really needed something more to eat; I didn't bring anything with me, though.
We finally get all lined up and ready to go. I've never been out on the majority of this course before, so I was totally flying blind. AND I forgot my bike computer, so I was going to have no idea mileage-wise where we were in the overall scheme of the race.
Start goes off, and we proceed out onto a 4 or 5-mile long sandy dirt road, which is part of the Kokopelli Trail. With this kind of terrain, tactics are pretty important. I just sat in the pack and tried to stay out of the wind; I felt like I had a great start. There was one decent acceleration after about 10 minutes, which I stayed on top of, but the group shook about 4 or 5 loose off the back.
About 18 minutes into the race, the dirt road has a little incline. I shifted to compensate, and my chain suddenly breaks. Crap. Everyone's still packed up, so I'm there fixing my chain with my entire group moving away from me at a pretty rapid pace. Coming off the bike with my heart rate at 180bpm, my hands were just shaking...especially because I knew the race was more or less over for me at that point. After five minutes (!) of trying to get my chain back together, I finally get my shit straight to get back in behind the top 3 singlespeeders, the group that started 3 minutes behind us.
Before long, though, I was into the Overlook Trail - a 10 mile long singletrack that was either whoopty-doos from motos, or massive rough rock slabs. Either case doesn't allow you to put much consistent effort into the pedals. Unfortunately, consistent effort into the pedals is really what my body is geared for right now. This section was like volunteering for torture on my lower back - my back muscles probably won't be kosher for several days. I was racing the Stumpy today, so the hardtail didn't help on the rock sections. I don't know that the Intense's full-suspension would have really helped that much, though. It was just a massive amount of hurt for me.
Throughout the entire race, people were passing me from behind, I was catching up to people, so I really had no clue where I was with relationship to other racers in my group...or with relationship to the overall course length.
At about 2 hours into the race, I completely cracked because of the inability to eat or drink effectively across the Overlook Trail. My mind started wandering, I simply couldn't put any effort into the pedals, and I just wanted to be done. This is where not having my computer really hurt, simply because I didn't know how much farther the race was. The open desert is a pretty desolate place to be when you're in that spot. Somewhere along that stretch, I hit a rock and fat-assed my saddle, so I had to get off the bike, whip the multi-tool out again, and get that straightened out. Which took two tries, because I over compensated the first time, and my butt was sliding forward on the saddle.
Got it fixed, rode for another 10 minutes or so, then had to make a last ditch effort to finish up. I stopped, ate both the remaining gels I had, and drank all of my water, to snap my body out of the funk I was in. It worked, because about a minute later, I was back on the Kokopelli Trail / Trail #2, heading back to the start/finish area. Strangely, I started feeling really good, and was passing people left and right while I hammered this slight grade climb in my big ring most of the way.
I don't mean to make light of others' misfortunes, but damn it was good for my psyche seeing all these other racers coming apart as well. The more I passed, the better I felt.
So one last grunt up the climbs to the finishing straight, and went as hard as I could to cross the line in case someone was following me. Ended up finishing in 12th, at 2h47min.
Everything considered, that was a pretty good result for me. Tyler caught me when I was fixing my saddle, and ended up taking 10th, about seven minutes in front of me. Jake White, another Vail local, must have came apart in the latter stages of the race, finishing 11th, about three minutes ahead. So riding the same ballpark as those guys, for my second Cat 1 race ever, made me feel pretty good. I know I could have been 15-20 minutes faster if everything had gone right. And if I would have had the pack to ride with up top, who knows. Maybe even faster than that; a 2:20 may have been doable. But that's why they run the races; not everything is going to be perfect every time.
And tonight? I'm buying a new chain. And probably new bottle cages...I'm getting really sick of not having a full tank of fluid out there.
nice work. sounds like fun out there. Maybe I'll put the Spesh Enduro together for a race this year.
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