First, I spent all last week up in Minnesota. It was quite a change going from Arizona to Minneapolis. On Saturday, Norma and I went for a ride at McDowell and it was 97 degreees. The next day I landed in Minneapolis and it was 27....that's a 70 degree change in less than 24 hours for me.
Besides the cold weather, I also didn't bring the bike along, so I had to rely on the hotel's fitness center to keep form, but I only went twice.
I did get a chance to visit my family and some friends. I spent Sunday with my family at my uncle's place in Forest Lake.
It was good to see everyone, including my Godson, Andreas, who's grown a lot since I last saw him last fall.
Here he is, not too happy about getting ready to go to bed.
The diet of that week wasn't the best. It's hard when all your meals are from restaurants. Besides, I think I drank way too much coffee during the week, so half way through my race on Saturday, after I had return to Phoenix I noticed how dehydrated I was. Not only that but my legs were heavy and slow and the scale had told me that I had brought back a couple extra pounds. All not good ingredients for a hilly race in the AZ Championship.
I am not looking for excuses, but the long flights, including a 3 hour wait in Dallas could have caused the heavy legs. Not to mention, that on the way to the race that morning, some of the roads were flooded...yes it rains from time to time down here and when it does , there are not many places for the water to go. Anyway, we had to find a detour and ended up getting to the race venue just 5 minutes before registration closed. Norma went to park and got the things ready while I registered, then I did a SuperMan clothes change and got less than 10 minutes for a quick warm up. An out and back on the entrance road was all I could manage before getting to the start line.
The start, as usual was really fast, but I did my best to stay with the lead group.
After the pace settled a bit, there were 6 of us in the lead group. I held the last wheel trying to conserve energy, however my lack of warm-up and the events of the week forced me to let the leaders go. I rode my pace for the first two laps and by the 3rd lap I regained a couple of spots. However on the 4th and last lap, my legs started to give up to the dehydration and started to cramp up. I took the pace down and two guys went by me. To my luck, they both had a couple mechanical issues before the finish, so I crossed the line in 4th. Not bad for a tough day on the bike.
The race itself consist of three races in one. Things start off with an Individual Time Trial on Friday. Saturday we have Super D race, which is similar to the TT but mostly Downhill, then Sunday it's the main event with the Cross Country race at McDowell Park in Fountain Hills.
I'll also get a chance to see some of the top pros including some of the fellow racers from Minnesota like Jeff Hall, so it should be an interesting weekend.
In preparation for the race I did one hard training ride on Tuesday under extremely windy conditions then Wednesday and today should be recovery rides.
Lastly, the secret weapon for this race passed last week's test with great performance during the White Tanks race. I am talking about the new Larsen TT tires from Maxxis. I installed them the night before going to Minneapolis and raced on them las week. However the real test will be this weekend, as the reason I picked them was because they should provide better cornering control on trails like McDowell.
Well see!
Here is how the Trek Fuel looks like with the new "shoes":
That's all for now, have a great weekend and until next time.
Pura Vida!
Jeff
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