Winsted Woods MTB "Race"/Trail Run

A lesson in futility.

This past week we had arguably the nicest string of weather we've had all year- low 70's and not a drop of precipitation. Being .25 miles from the Winsted Woods course, I had that course dialed. Promoters Bikers Edge had made several changes to the course from previous editions and it became one of the more technical tracks in the Root 66 Series. Add torrential rain to the mix and yeah, you know where this is going...

I wake up Sunday morning feeling great, take a peek out the window and it's showering. I say to myself, ah, the course is really dry anyway so it'll firm things up. I pour my first cup of coffee, tune into the Giro stage to Etna, look outside and now it's a straight-up deluge. Wonderful. I pull up live weather radar and there is a swath of rain containing large areas of red. So much for Accuweather's "Showers around" forecast. I look outside again and as Em's great grandmother Henrietta used to say, "Pixies are dancing in the street." Not to mention, there's a goddamn river running down my street.

The storm is moving quickly through but the damage had already been done. I kit up, throw some embro on, grab my backpack and ride the 1.5 miles to the race. At least I had that going for me... I arrive at the race start, set up my bottles, and am content just sitting under a tent not getting wet as it became clear today would not be a day for me. Word filters through that they're going to cut ~.5 miles from the course AND a lap. Yeah, that pretty much equals course has become a SHITSHOW. I ran into my buddy Josh and he tells me that this is one of those days where you just salvage what you can and try to get a workout out of it. I quickly employed the "I've got to go to work on Monday" strategy. No risks.

Toeing the line, I had firmly resigned myself to the fact that I was merely doing this race to do it and hopefully I wouldn't get hurt in the process. Whistle blows, off we go, and it took exactly 2 minutes for this venture to become not fun. Hitting the first twisty, rooty section my front tire was completely useless. A Karma filled with mud may as well be a slick. I was slipping all over the place, unclipping seemingly every other pedal stroke. All the lines I had previously dialed were now gone. It was so bad I literally felt at times like I was riding in snow. I was quickly in last as everyone from my field disappeared. Were they running Nokians or what? I felt like a Cat 3. All the climbs I had mastered were now unrideable and at times they felt unrunable. I kept muttering to myself that this was such bullshit as I nearly fell on my face. At times the sections I could ride consisted of 3 and 4 pedal strokes before forward motion occurred. The jumps that I was hitting with reckless abandon earlier in the week now skeeved me out when I looked down at my mud-filled front tire. I resorted to cyclocross dismounts which probably lost me 15 seconds a lap. The descent from the field that I had been bombing was now an uber slimy slip and slide. My lack of confidence in my front tire was reinforced when I crashed spectacularly on the huge log pile before the finish. In front of like a dozen people. Fortunately only thing hurt was ego. But I forged ahead. The successive laps were just a pleasant mix of mini-crashes, 100 meter runs, and expletives.

All told, I'll bet I ran at the very least a mile in the race on Sunday. I actually felt good running. I almost want to do some trail running again. NOT. To give you an idea of how much slower the course was (or I was on the course), I had done a hot lap in 27:40 on Thursday. Sunday I averaged 34:14/lap on a course that was .5 miles shorter! But alas, as the old saying goes, that's mtb racing! Onward.

As a fitting end to the story, I'm riding back over the ridge with Emily in tow carrying my water bottles and stand. I'm descending the other side and I decide to perform a slow-motion over the bars crash on a rock that I've probably ridden over 50 times. Yeah, that about sums it up.