It's been almost five years since I participated on my first mountain bike race at Afton Alps in Minnesota. Back then I raced three times as a Beginner, then moved up to the Sport category and a year later up to the Competitive level. The last couple of years I've been racing at the Expert level. However after more than 100 races, I had never had the opportunity to race at a National event until this past weekend when the National Mountain Bike Series had its season opener at the McDowell Mountain Park here just outside of Phoenix.
This year's training plan was set up in a way that allowed me to come into this event in top form and eventhough it was the first event of the year, there were many riders from all over the country, even those that are still enduring winter. To my surprise, everyone was in top form too.
This was a weekend-long of races. With a stage race format, we had three individual races, one each day, but all of them would be counted towars an overall competition too and everything started on Friday afternoon with an Individual Time Trial.
Individual Time TrialFriday I got up early and drove up to McDowell, so I could start my volunteer shift right at 7:00 AM. My race wasn't until 2 PM, but by working a few hours as a volunteer at the registration table, I would be able to race for free. That saved me over $120.00 in registration, parking and food. Sweet deal!!!
By noon my shift was over and even though my legs were a little tired of standing up for the past few hours, I still had plenty of time to get them ready for the TT.
I got myself ready and started my warm-up in preparation for 7 painful miles. It doesn't sound as much, but when you are going all out for that long it feels like an eternity.
Anyway, the TT has the riders starting in 30-seconds intervals and covers a 7-mile course with ups and downs, a couple of technical sections and a long climb then ends back in the gravel parking lot where it started.
About 15 minutes before my scheduled start time I concluded my warm-up on the road and moved closer to the staging area. I kept riding just up and down the start/finish shute for what I thought were like 5 minutes, however when I got closer to the start line to see how much more I had to wait, one of the officials spotted my number and yelled "677 move you, you are up next." The other riders allow me to get through and by the time I put my front tire on the start line he said " you are going in 15 seconds." I grabbed a sip of water and seconds later I was cranking hard on the pedals to reach cruising speed. Half way throught the TT I noticed something odd and it dawn on me that I had forgotten to put my gloves on, so my sweaty palms were having a hard time grabbing the grips, but no time to put them on during the race. I caught my 30-second man at the beginning of the long climb and passed him, then I caught my 1-minute man before the top. By then I only had less than a mile left and I wanted to go faster but my legs and a horrible stomach cramp didn't allow it. I crossed the line at 23:21 which put me on 4th place in my category. To my surprise I was only 35 seconds down from 1st place, so the difference was still manageable.
That night I came home with a "semi-bronze" medal (since I finished 4th) because they awarded the top 5.
Super DOn Saturday I woke up all pumped up from the previous day's result. I cleaned the bike and got it ready for racing, had breakfast and headed over to the race site. The next race was a Super D. It's very similar to the Time Trial except that the interval between one rider and the other is only 20 seconds. In addition the majority of the course is supposed to be downhill.
I pre-rode the course the day before but much slower that race pace.
I got to the start line in time and with my gloves on this time. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go" was the last thing I heard before I acceleraded down the hill at 25-30 MPH picking the best line through the turns and keeping the cadence high. A couple of miles down the trail I had my 20-second man on-sight. I had passed him before the half way point then came the hills. The course was all downhill at the beginning with lots of short, steep hills at the end. I struggled to finish the last climb and barely had energy left to cross the line at 18:36...more than a minute and a half down from the fastest rider, therefore in 23rd place...yikes!!!
I came home that night a little desappointed but I had high hopes for the last race.
Cross-CountryThe cross-country was the main and last event of the weekend. It consisted of 3 laps to a loop of 10 miles, so there was plenty of time to make up the difference. Luckily after the horrible finish on the Super D, I was still on 4th place on the overall after two events.
At 8:06 AM we went out and once the start jitters went away and we all set onto a nice even pace, I was in the Top-10 group. I knew it was going to be a long race, so I focused on a good rythm without wasting energy. Slowly, racers from out of town, unfamiliar to desert racing started to make silly mistakes and I started to slowly move up through the field. By the end of the first lap I was in 6th. On the second lap, two other riders crashed right in front of me at two different times and I was already on 4th. Half-way through the 3rd and last lap I caugh up to the 3rd place rider then passed him and went on to chase 2nd place. I caught him too but he stuck to my wheel. I knew I only had one bullet left and I was planning to save it until an eventual sprint, so I rode at hight tempo making sure that he didn't have a chance to attack. We were also starting to catch up to traffic from other categories so everytime I passed someone, he did too. However about a mile before the finish I passed a female expert rider right before a sharp turn and by the time he tried to pass, she had blocked the trail, so he hit a bush and lost his momentum. I didn't even had to look back, I heard the noice and attacked with all I had. At the top of the next up hill I looked back and he was chasing hard but I had a 30 yard gap, the gap grew by the next short up hill to about 60 yards, then I didn't look back anymore as I was getting to the finish stretch, so I pushed it hard until I crossed the line and put 25 seconds on him.
Another medal, this time silver but on the overall I was only able to move up to third. As it turned out, the guy I had just beaten by 25 seconds, was 37 seconds ahead of me at the start of the race, so I got 12 seconds short of 2nd overal
In the end, a very successful weekend and very hard too.
I took Monday off. I didn't ride the bike. Instead I hung the medals on the kitchen's key holder, we had a couple of beers and I even had some birthday cake from a co-worker's party, along with an ice cream cone.
Tuesday, Norma and I went out for a ride of about 1 hour to stretch the legs and get them ready for the training towards the next big race.
Until next time....
Pura Vida!
The hallway takes you to the second bedroom and bathroom at the end, then the first right is the hallway to the master bedroom. The other door on the right goes to the two-car garage.
As shown in the picture, Norma and I would welcome you with arms wide-open anytime your travel plans take you to the Phoenix area. 