Solitude

While Doug and Bubba and families were enjoying the track trails, Tanner and I were racing the State Championships at Solitude.

The good:

• Tanner was 2nd in the Expert 16 - 18 and improved his last year's time by more than 15 minutes.
• Tanner only crashed once and I kept it off the ground the entire race.
• I managed to stay fed and hydrated so that when I finished I felt somewhat human. This is a first for me at this race.
• Chris Bingham and Michelle Hollingsed from our team are new State Champions. Chris put it to us old guys and had the fastest Expert time overall. The 40+ is becoming the fastest group.
• I was 5 minutes faster than last year and nearly 3 minutes faster than the year before.
• The hard-tail was not too bad. I had some arm-pump and soreness by the end, but it was better than I thought it would be and definitely faster on the climb.
• Solitude is a cool place to ride.
• Chirs Fox hit me with a snowball during the climb on the first lap. It felt kind of good.
• BK didn't throw his bike off a cliff and walk in. He managed a solid 4th, way ahead of me.

The not so good:

• I confirmed yet again I'm not a climber.
• EVERYONE that shows up in the 40+ Expert is fast so I can have a good race and battle for last. Last year, my 5 minutes slower race got me 4th. This year, I improve a bunch and finish 6th. The "young" old guys are raising the bar.
• I was 0 for 3 on the tricky section at the top of the climb. I've been able to ride it in the past and this year I was an oxygen deprived spaz. The first attempt was particularly entertaining. I lifted my front wheel to go over the rocky ledge at the top of the steep bank and managed to set it down on the near side of the ledge. The result was a cool front wheel stand with a few pedal strokes before I saved myself from an ugly endo. The forward momentum caused my wrists to rotate forward shifting my grip-shifters all the way forward. So when I got back on the bike, the chain was all jammed up. Smooth. I'm sure I could hear the guy behind me laughing out loud.
• The opening paved climb is absolutely no fun. 10 minutes of hell for me as I slowly get dropped. There should be a rule against starting a race with a climb with sections over 20%.

I'm on a serious recovery week now until Saturday. It's time to re-charge, do a couple more MTB races in the coming weeks, then focus on cross. I just spent more money on cross tires the last couple of weeks than tires for a car. Crazy.