Sunday, July 19, 2009

kewasted (kewaskum)

Kewaskum, race number 6 in the wors series. I felt pretty good going into this race, I've raced here three years and had good results every time including an overall victory. Before the race the biggest worry i had was getting a good start and staying in contact with the leaders. I'm notorious for bad starts. As the GOOOOOOOO sounded i found both of my pedals pretty quick and had myself a good start, goal accomplished. Shortly after the start there was a crash that my teammate Jesse was in that i narrowly missed. I reached the first climb in the top 10 in my wave, right where i wanted to be. After cruising through the corn field, and going back and forth in an open field to complete the lap I was feeling good about where i was, i'm guessing fourth in my wave. The second lap came and went with little to no change in my position or my fatigue level. The third lap started alright enough but ended with me on the brink of bonking. Not what i needed going into the long strung out and at some points pretty steep climb at the start of each lap. The fourth lap was where i started to feel like a real big "shit burger"(name that movie). Racers started to pass me one after the other. I finally made it to the finish line and once i stopped racing i figured i would start to feel better....Not the case, I in fact felt worse. My stomach was tight, my head hurt and i felt like i was on heavy drugs. After getting some water from some caring teammates i started to feel alittle better. I took 25th overall and 4th in my age group, a far cry from what i was hoping for. All and all it was a rough course, and a rough race for many.
Looking forward to Franklin!

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

been lazy

I know i missed a write up on the mt morris race so i'll say this. It was really HOT and i took 10th overall and 1st in my age group. It was a hard grind it out kind of race. Moving on.......

Eau Claire/ Chippewa Valley firecracker. Race number five in the WORS series.The fun started saturday when Jesse, Tyler and myself pre rode the course. It was a good course, it had just about everything you could want in a mountain bike course. Fast flowing singletrack with corners you could really carve hard, well.... most of the corners i should say. I did find one that had a tree with my name on it. (Tina strikes again) There were creek crossings, switchback climbs, log piles, technical decents and more. They also added a new section this year, I'll call it "the drainage ditch". Because that's exactly what it was, a ditch with big, loose, sharp rocks. The trail led you down into this thing coming off a small hill so you had some speed and WAAAM you'd hit it, bounce around in it for about 20 feet and then you had to try to climb this small incline to get out of it. To put it into perspective, some of the elite guys were having trouble with this so called rock garden. After the pre ride we went and fueled up at the spaghetti dinner. The spaghetti was good but the apple Cinnamon desert was great! While digesting dinner Jesse, Jenny and I went "alittle early" to the movie but we did get great seats for "freedom riders".Sunday morning came and Kristi, Jenny and I did the trail run. Kristi and I doing the 5K and Jenny doing the 10k. After that it was time to rest up for the bike race. While resting under the team canape a woman walked by our camp and asked while pointing at the performa banner, if we were going to make a jump again. I found it funny that she associated the performa banner with the jumps built at past races. After resting a bit more it was time to mix some bottles and get ready to do some racin'. The lead out was quick but Jesse and i found ourselves in the front 8-10 riders. During the first two laps i could see him on the switchbacks so i knew we were both holding up pretty well going into the last lap. We both had to deal with lap traffic due to our wave going out last. But we were both able to weave our way through the rocks, the twisty singletrack and WORS racers to the podium. Jesse taking 23rd overall, 3rd in our age group missing 2nd by .3 seconds.I took 12th overall and 1st in the 25-29 age group.Good times had by all!I hope to see everyone at the sunburst showdown. P.S. Don't forget to take off of work october 12th for camping after sheboygan. There are only two group sites and if we get more than six people we're going to need a group site. They do have showers on site. These sites fill up quick so let me know, the sooner the better.