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| Short Track (Photo credit: Bear Creek Mountain Resort) |
I had a great time last weekend. Not only did I
get to preview the course that Mountain Bike Nationals will be at, but I also had
some really good results. And to add to that, I also finished my
first pro race, and gained some valuable information about myself as a
racer and as a rider.
I was as excited as ever to get to Bear Creek,
because I had some unfinished business with the course. I
arrived at the resort Thursday night, and was relieved to have
finally gotten there after the 15 hour drive. I couldn't wait
until the next day to finally get out on the course. After
riding a loop of the course on Friday, I felt sure of myself and
couldn't wait to get out there and race.
On Saturday I had two races, the Short Track,
in which I raced Cat 2, and the Super-D, in which I raced Junior Open.
The short track was 20 minutes plus 3 laps, which in the end
came out at just under 30 minutes. Knowing this, I knew it was
going to be the longest short track racing I've ever done, but I
was determined to finish strong. Off the start, someone clipped
my handlebars and I stumbled a little and didn't get clipped
into my pedals right away. Even with this setback though, I kept pushing
until I was in second place and sitting on the leader's wheel going
up the starting climb. The person I was following was an
18 year old road racer who was incredibly strong. Throughout the
race he made monstrous attacks on me on the climb and on the
flats. And after 4 laps of pushing myself the hardest I think
I've ever pushed, I finally tired out a little and he got a gap
on me. For the rest of the race, I turned myself inside out trying to catch back up to him, but he was slowly increasing the
gap. Finally, after the 29 minutes of excruciating pain, I
finished 2nd.
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| Short Track podium (Yes, I know I'm standing on the wrong side.) |
After the short track race I was determined to
keep doing well and have a great result in the Super-D. I had an
awesome start on the Super-D and flowed through the hardest
section. I had an almost flawless run apart from one section
where my foot managed to unclip and I was pedaling with one foot
over the second hardest rock section. Once I finished, I had a
time of 4 minutes and 57 seconds, which put me in first place in my category (and the Cat 2 category), and would've put me in 13th in the pro category. Not too bad for a
junior on a hardtail.
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| Super-D podium |
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| Pro/Open staging |
Now on to Sunday. Oh boy. This was probably the
most amount of fun and pain I have ever had in one 3-hour time
period. I lined up on the front of the starting line and
prepared myself for the pain I was about to endure. Originally,
we were just going to do a 90 minute race on a course similar to
the course I'll be racing at Nationals. I knew that the lap times
were between 20 and 25 minutes. So I figured about 4 laps at the
most. While I was lined up, I asked the race promoter how many laps we
were going to do just to be safe, and he told me that we were
going to do 6 laps. Now I won't call myself a genius, but I'm
pretty sure that even at the fastest, about 20 minutes a lap, 6
× 20min = 120min. That's at least 2 hours, not to mention that
most of the racers would probably do more like 23-25 minute lap times. So we were going to
be out there for well over 2 hours for an advertised 90 minute
race. Apparently, the race promoter didn't realize that the extra
sections he added increased the lap times by 5 minutes from last
year's course. Sorry for the rant.
Back to the race. Off the line, I managed to
have yet another bad start and I had to put my foot down and
push off before I could go anywhere. Going up the starting climb
I was sitting in 6th and managed to maintained it for about 10
minutes. From there, I battled it out with the other racers
until the third lap, where I was getting passed on the flats and
passing back on the grass climbs and technical descents. By the
time the third lap came around, my legs were shot. I had to stop
in the feed zone for a couple of minutes to get some fuel in me and
recover a little. After that I went back out and suffered up the
climbs thanks to having too big of a front chain ring.
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| Photo credit: Bear Creek Mountain Resort |
On the fourth
lap, the leader passed me, so I knew I only had to do 5 laps
instead of the dreaded 6. So I kept pedaling through the pain.
By the time I had crossed the finish line, my total ride time,
including my warm-up, was well over 3 hours. Even with that, I
still managed to not come in last, getting 16th place, and even got
prize money for coming in the top 20. This race, went from being
an easy excuse to race the pro category, because it was a similar
course to mine at Nationals and a shorter race than what I
would've done in the cat 2 juniors, to being the longest and most
painful ride I have ever done on the bike.
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| In the money, with teammate Veda, who got 3rd in the Pro/Open Women |
But other than that, I had a lot of fun hanging
out with current friends and making new ones. I also had a great
time being at Bear Creek for Veda's birthday and seeing her do
so well in the Pro/Open Women's class. Also, a super giant thanks goes out to Matt Donovan for making this trip possible.
Next weekend, I go back to road racing practically in my backyard at the Ocala (Almost) Stage Race.
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