OK, so it's not Wide World of Sports-level drama, but here goes...
I decided to do the final race in this Wed. night XC series that I'm doing, despite the fact I did this 6 Hours of Pummeling endurance race this past Sunday. The course isn't too tough -- a 2.5 mile loop with about 35% of it wooded twisty singletrack. I went there with the notion that I had a remote possible outside ghost of a chance of finishing 3rd in the standings for my class. (I didn't know for sure because the results for the previous race weren't posted online yet.) When I got there, I found out that my minute chance was no longer there because I only finished 6th in the last race.
OK, I thought, that's sort of a relief cuz I don't have to kill myself and just ride to finish and make some sort of accomplishment that I can do 2 races in a week (hey, for me that's BIG). Who knows what I'm going to feel like once the race starts. Am I even fully recovered from the 6HOP?
So the race starts and I'm fighting lactic acid for about the 1st lap. A couple people pass me, but I manage to pass 1 or 2 myself, so I'm not doing bad. Come lap 2, I see the roadsign for Bonkville, and the GU I took at the end of lap 1 hasn't kicked in yet. I fight off the bonk while I'm listening to my right lobe argue with my left lobe:
"Don't kill yourself. You've got a Monkeyfest this weekend and you want to be able to ride, right?"
"Shaddap. How will you ever know what you have in you unless you give it your all? Besides, you have a couple days to recover."
So the latter wins out and I'm finding the energy to start putting the hammer down. I start to feel really great and start picking off riders on laps 3 and 4. At one point I'm horsing it up a hill so much so that my front wheel is bouncing around, but plenty of power in the back to pull away from the nearest guy behind me. (Jackalopes -- think Denny Creed
)
So I'm feeling the best I've felt in this race series and am able to pass 1 more rider before the downhill section at the end of lap 4. One more lap to go and I know I still have the energy (thank you, makers of GU). At the bottom of the downhill I hear "floppityfloppityfloppity," look down and see my front tire sinking. The rocky, potholey downhill got me. My chances of finishing in the top 5 are gone, but I want to finish. In haste to rejoin, I pull boneheaded move #42 -- putting my freshly-tubed wheel back into the dropouts, I bend the $hit outta the Avid disc pad retaining springs with my rotor. (An equally boneheaded design.) It's hosed and my front wheel can't spin freely. All that ambition and energy, only to DNF.
Well, at least I knew that I had it in me and that I would've been able to finish strong. It's just too bad I couldn't have improved my overall points standing for the series.
OK. Gripe session over. I'm off to get some dinner.
Mmmmmmmmmm Grape Nuts!
I decided to do the final race in this Wed. night XC series that I'm doing, despite the fact I did this 6 Hours of Pummeling endurance race this past Sunday. The course isn't too tough -- a 2.5 mile loop with about 35% of it wooded twisty singletrack. I went there with the notion that I had a remote possible outside ghost of a chance of finishing 3rd in the standings for my class. (I didn't know for sure because the results for the previous race weren't posted online yet.) When I got there, I found out that my minute chance was no longer there because I only finished 6th in the last race.
OK, I thought, that's sort of a relief cuz I don't have to kill myself and just ride to finish and make some sort of accomplishment that I can do 2 races in a week (hey, for me that's BIG). Who knows what I'm going to feel like once the race starts. Am I even fully recovered from the 6HOP?
So the race starts and I'm fighting lactic acid for about the 1st lap. A couple people pass me, but I manage to pass 1 or 2 myself, so I'm not doing bad. Come lap 2, I see the roadsign for Bonkville, and the GU I took at the end of lap 1 hasn't kicked in yet. I fight off the bonk while I'm listening to my right lobe argue with my left lobe:
"Don't kill yourself. You've got a Monkeyfest this weekend and you want to be able to ride, right?"
"Shaddap. How will you ever know what you have in you unless you give it your all? Besides, you have a couple days to recover."
So the latter wins out and I'm finding the energy to start putting the hammer down. I start to feel really great and start picking off riders on laps 3 and 4. At one point I'm horsing it up a hill so much so that my front wheel is bouncing around, but plenty of power in the back to pull away from the nearest guy behind me. (Jackalopes -- think Denny Creed
)So I'm feeling the best I've felt in this race series and am able to pass 1 more rider before the downhill section at the end of lap 4. One more lap to go and I know I still have the energy (thank you, makers of GU). At the bottom of the downhill I hear "floppityfloppityfloppity," look down and see my front tire sinking. The rocky, potholey downhill got me. My chances of finishing in the top 5 are gone, but I want to finish. In haste to rejoin, I pull boneheaded move #42 -- putting my freshly-tubed wheel back into the dropouts, I bend the $hit outta the Avid disc pad retaining springs with my rotor. (An equally boneheaded design.) It's hosed and my front wheel can't spin freely. All that ambition and energy, only to DNF.
Well, at least I knew that I had it in me and that I would've been able to finish strong. It's just too bad I couldn't have improved my overall points standing for the series.
OK. Gripe session over. I'm off to get some dinner.
Mmmmmmmmmm Grape Nuts!
