Well now.
It's been a while since I've actually done up a proper post. Call it laziness, or lethargy, or being busy with other things, or training, or whatever.
Anyways, I'm a solid three races into the mountain bike season, so I figured I'd spill it all and summarize how things are going so far. Let's do this one race at a time, and since one is pretty fresh, we'll hash it out in reverse order.
This past Saturday was the Front Range 60 MTB race, put on by Warriors Cycling. Known in the past as the "Battle of the Bear", the race is typically a early season race around Bear Creek Lake State Park in Lakewood, CO; this event always brings a number of people down out of the mountains to get some training in as well as thaw out from the long winter.
This was my first year racing the event. I signed up for the "half-marathon" - a 30-mile shorter version of the FR60. After pre-riding the course on Wednesday evening, I knew this course set up well for my strengths: a lot of flat, fast, sandy singletrack and doubletrack trails, with 5 different punchy climbs mixed in, for a 10-mile lap that was challenging and tactical enough for pro racers, and simple enough for beginners to enjoy themselves and the competition.
Fellow Bach racer Tim also came down from Eagle to race the 30 miler, as did fellow valley residents Jerry Oliver and Tyler Eaton to race the 60 miler earlier in the day.
I realized when I was warming up for the race that there were a number of guys in my age group that actually race in the Pro field for the Mountain States Cup series...there were no "ability" categories. Mens Half-Marathon, 30-39yrs old. Yikes...going head to head with some of the fastest guys around.
The weather was amazing all day, with temps starting on the warm side in the morning for the 60-milers. By the time we got lined up for the 30-mile race at 2pm, temps were pushing 90F in the direct sunlight, with very little breeze. My body was loving the heat, thawing out from 8 months of winter. Line up, with Elgee on the mic, and off we go...
Pace was fast and heavy right off the start. I sat in the group to try to get comfortable and get my heart rate and breathing plateaued off as soon as possible, rather than spiking and trying to hold it. Our group was split up within the first 10 minutes of the race - the fast Pro guys off the front, and the rest of us just left in a wake of splintered up crap after trying to hang.
About two-thirds of the way through the first lap, the largest climb on the circuit hit like a wall. While it was only about 300 ft of vertical, and just barely had to drop into the middle ring to climb it, it was in direct sunlight, and completely protected from any breeze there was. All of a sudden, I'm overheating...no bueno. Only having a bottle of Infinit drink, I had nothing to effectively cool off. Fought through being on the verge of passing out, and descended the other side to finish off the lap.
Second lap was really good effortwise - I kept a solid spin going up all the climbs, and was doing work on all the flats, hammering out in the big ring. Third lap started off well, but heading into the big climb again, my left hamstring started to twinge a little. By the time I was on the homestretch back to the finish line, my right quad was about ready to sieze completely. Put the rest of the drink I had in me, limped up the last climb of the day to the finish line, and crossed the line.
Since we were so splintered up, it was difficult to tell where I placed. I felt like I had a pretty good day on the bike. I was losing about 5 minutes a lap to the guy who won our group, but kept it relatively close to the bunch in front of me. Ended up finishing in 2:05:58, which was good enough for 13th in our group of 25. Didn't quite hit my goal of a Top 5 finish, but given the pros racing in the field, I'm OK with it. After seeing the halfway times of some of the 60-mile racers, I also set a goal for sub-2:00, which I came close to, but ultimately, the overheating on the first lap and the cramping on the third lap kept me from getting there.
Overall, the course was kind of boring but
super fast, so it was fun from that regard. Not every day you get to big-ring almost an entire race. Lots of good competition showed, and the event overall was very well organized, run, and sponsored. I mean, cross the finish line, pound some water, then Oskar Blues Brewery is handing out free Mama's Little Yella Pils, Gordon's, and Dale's Pale Ale? Come on...not going to do much better than that.
