Winding Trails Fat Tire Classic

"It's raining cats and dogs." That must have come out of Em's mouth at least a dozen times Saturday night. She has a penchant for hyperbole but it did really start coming down after 9pm. I began thinking that the now non-roadie friendly Winding Trails course was going to be that much more well, non-roadie friendly.

I had a relatively relaxed week after Battenkill. My lovely girlfriend is a sleep-pusher so it's not unusual to be in bed at 8:30. I was thankful for that and I've become a believer in the value of 9+ hrs of sleep a night. Train hard/rest hard. That's my motto for 2011.

Pre-riding the course Thursday night, they had cut several sections of singletrack that paralleled and crisscrossed the fire roads that were once part of the course. For the life of me, I couldn't lay off the brakes. I guess this was to be expected seeing I hadn't been on the mtb since AZ, nearly a month ago. And we all know that riding singletrack at "training" pace and race pace are completely different animals. Anyway, getting back up to speed requires a call to the engine room for more power. This isn't the most efficient way of racing a mtb as there's only so many times you can call down to Scotty.

Fastforward to race day. Our race wasn't going off until 2pm so it being local was both a blessing and a curse. Yeah, it's the second closest in Root 66 but I had to wait around for 5 hours until race time. So to pass the time and perhaps draw on some inspiration, I watched "Phil" smash everybody on the finishing climb of the Cauberg at Amstel Gold:





The weather cleared up nicely though it was still quite windy. Ah, I guess redlining in the woods for 90 minutes would be better than pounding the pavement today. (Still open for debate.) It's funny I wasn't really nervous about the race; I was more anxious about the impending pain. From the pre-ride I knew it was going to hurt- full gas with very few (if any) spots for recovery. The "climbs" are just a bunch of kickers with none lasting more than 20 seconds. Do this for 4 laps at 10x a lap...yeah you get the picture. And oh yeah, the mud bogs..

I lined up in the front row. We had 15 guys in our race. I was next to a guy at the start who looked like he just blew 1/2 a kilo, so I just said, "you can take the holeshot, bro." Because as the old saying goes, "we've got to go to work on Monday." I got a pretty good start (for me) as I think I was 6th going into the singletrack. This is actually a phenomenal start; I tend to start off ridiculously slow and pick off riders as I go. But I knew this race was going to be relatively short with few places to pass and positioning was to be that much more important. As it was, the 2 guys immediately in front of me were slower than me through the techy stuff (really?) and a gap was opening up to the 3 guys out front. I got around Scarface and company on one of the climbs and started to chase down the leaders, two of them being my teammates.

I must have not read the memo on the whole Newton's law of conservation of energy thingy as again I was all over the brakes. Put energy into pedals, lose said energy in form of heat on brake pads. Wonderful. I wore my HR monitor with the Garmin and to tell you the truth, I don't really know why. I didn't need an electronic device telling me that I was at my limit (and beyond). The course was twisty, wet, and rooty. I guess this is to be expected as it is a mountain bike race. I felt like I was going ok, but I made it a point to hammer every hill and flat section where I could lay down the power. I was working REALLY hard. So hard that I began to contemplate driving the bike into a sharp rock going into the 4th lap.

But I was in a battle with 2 guys in my class for what place I didn't even know. My teammate Craig, a mtbmind rider and myself decided to play musical bikes the last couple of laps. It was funny; I think each one of us traded positions at least 3 times. At least it kept my mind occupied. Finally, going into the last lap Craig and I put some distance between us and the other guy. I was keeping Craig's wheel but he started creating some space through the twisty stuff and quite frankly I was running. out. of. gas. I may have yelled a "I thought you were sick?!" as he gapped me due to the fact that he "apparently" had been ill most of the week prior to the race. Yeah, yeah, I fell victim to the gamesmanship, bro. Chapeau. The nail in the coffin was when we started catching the women and he did the very veteran move of getting by a couple of them going into some singletrack. I welcomed the break as my HR finally fell below 170 (Aaah) and of course, I didn't want to be that guy. Craig pulled about 15 seconds and I was content on powering home solo in what would surprisingly be... 3rd place! Teammate Jason took the victory so our squad swept the podium with very strong showings from Miles and TJ in 5th and 7th as well! Brian again shattered the hopes and dreams of everybody in his field. Nice work, boys!

It's obvious I need to work on becoming faster in the woods. To have to ride within 5 beats of VOmax for 90+ minutes is ridiculous. But I figure it's easier to work on tech skills than fitness, right?

For the Stravists:

http://app.strava.com/rides/442097

Lap1: 23:04

Lap2: 24:12

Lap3: 24:18

Lap4: 24:52*

*Getting caught behind women in singletrack may have accounted for 10 sec. so fatigue implosion wasn't too bad.