Almost

Yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day for MTB racing. It was cold (low to mid 40's) and the wind was blowing hard, but no rain and the trails were perfect. I'll take yesterday's conditions over sunny 90 degrees anytime. Hydration and over-heating were not issues and we were protected from the wind most of the course.

I had a good race and almost won. I felt OK and raced hard the entire 2.5 hours. There is next to no recovery at 5-mile and it seems you are never going downhill. Rob Westerman and I battled the whole race. I lead most of the 1st 11 mile lap and the he got a pretty good gap on the 2nd lap. I slowly started to come back and closed the gap to less than a minute at the start of the 3rd lap. I was closing and trying to measure the effort so that I wouldn't be blown when I caught him. I finally did get to him on the hike-a-bike about 1/3 of the way into the 3rd lap (see Chris Fox's blog for some good pictures of the hike section http://www.bikehusla.blogspot.com/ Fox is the only guy I know that can take pictures WHILE racing.) and we raced together for most of the rest of the race. I tired to drop Rob on the one real decent of the race but couldn't open a big enough gap. On the last steep roller coming in, he attacked and I couldn't respond so I ended up about 20 seconds back.

It was fun to complete the entire race. It's unusal to ride together for any length of time in an MTB race. Most of the time, gaps open and you are on your own. Rob and I talked a fair amount and on the last lap, I knew I was in trouble when I could hardly speak and he's talking easily. Rob's a great guy and won the XC National Championship in the 45-49 class two years ago. Anytime I can be close to him, I'm happy.

Racing for the lead covers much of the suffering. It didn't seem all the hard when I was passing guys that started ahead of me and closing on Rob. Funny how it works that way. However, last night and today, my legs have let me know I did some work.

Tanner had another solid race. He was 3rd in the 13 - 15 Sport/Expert class. He continues to improve and took 10 or 15 minutes off last year's pace. He was only about 10 minutes off the winner of his group. Tanner showed me this kid after the race and he looked like a Pro. I couldn't believe he was Tanner's age. He had a great cycling build and looked very fit. I'm proud of Tanner's willingness to do difficult things and compete hard. Most kids his age just want to play video games and have everything handed to them.

Adam, good job at Antelope in very difficult conditions. If you miss the move with that kind of wind, it's over. I'm impressed you hung in as well as you did. We need to hear the details.

Only one race with this week, RMR. I'm off to do some work at my neighbor's mountain ranch this Friday and Saturday. This is part of my dues to hunt there this fall.

Daren