Submitted by Cliff K

As Saturday morning arrived and with the forecast calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s there was little debate as to what to do, time to race the mountain bike!  It’s been several months (May 23rd to be exact) since the last time I threw a leg over the mountain bike in competition.  I arrived at the venue around 10:30 for an 11:20 start and proceeded to see a few friendly faces upon registering for the event.  I did my usual prerace preparation which consists of asking a few people who actually pre-rode the course what to expect.  Since I was actually early to a race, by my standards at least, I set out to find Jon Tarbox who was also racing the Cat 1 race and see if he had any additional information I could use.  He was just heading out for a preride and warm up but let me know that I could ride the beginning of the course and come back the dirt road.  With 20 minutes until the start of my race I set out to see the first part of the course.  To my surprise the first mile or so was tight singletrack with loads of corners and a decent amount of rocky terrain.  Once seeing this I started to get excited as I knew that the race would reward more than just fitness which is generally a good thing for me!

Based upon my limited preride I decided that if possible I wanted to get the holeshot and try to lead for the first part of the race until the course opened up on a dirt road after a mile or two.  My plan was executed perfectly and I was able to get a reasonable gap on the first section of singletrack.  From there I backed off as I knew it was going to be a long tough race.  I was passed by 2 guys about half way through the first lap on the one section that had a sustained climb.  I was already at this point working on how to save energy as the race was on the longer side, 24 miles for how demanding the course was.  The back third of the course had lots of flow with many corners and a few tough rock gardens.  It was on this section I was able to pass back for second and get close to the first place guy.  As we were just approaching the finish line I saw the leader pull over and start to fix a rear flat, perfect, guess I’m going to lead the first lap!  Around halfway through the next lap I was passed again on the longer sustained climb section and was not able to recover the gap on the back section.  In the end I finished second a few minutes from the win but also five minutes up on 3rd place.

All in all it was a great event and I will sure to be back next year but this time I’ll be slightly more prepared and looking for a win!

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