Addison Oaks Fall Classic XC

Sunday I raced my very first mountain bike race ever.  After a long season of riding on the road...boy was this a change in pace needed.  After my last road race Labor Day Monday I proceeded to hop on my mountain bike Wednesday and Thursday.  I felt so good on the trails I looked online Thursday night and found a MTB race that was Sunday.  I was like "ah what the hell, can't be to hard."  So I signed up feeling confident I had a shot at winning my sport division.   I could have raced beginner, but I though that would be unfair. I also figured I needed a solid race to really get me ready for Iceman in November, and with my upcoming vacations this weekend was my last shot at squeezing a MTB race in. 

So Sunday rolled around and I showed up at the race.  Saturday I had been doing some last minute upgrades on the bike, with more to follow in the next month to make it race ready.  My bike was still hefty, far off the pedigree of a racing mountain bike but I figured I had the power to ride strong with what I had.  As soon as I got to the race though I felt out of place, it was like starting all over again.  However though I didn't have any pre race butterflies.  My goal for the day was just to finish, and learn for Iceman.   Now generally in road racing its ok to race the course blind, not knowing where the roads take you.  More realistically its probably better to do more then 3 trail rides for the year prior to your first race.  So, I was racing the course blind and with less then 50 off road miles for the year.   Heh, I figured "I am fit, I can handle this."  You can probably see where this all is going, I might have been a bit to arrogant.  I grossly misunderstood the type of preparation that is required to race off road.

Finally start time approached, there was 11 others next to me.  My race was scheduled for 21 miles with about 15 of that I would say racing single track.  Since it was a mass start my strategy was to slot in behind the leaders and follow them till I learned the course.  I had done that last year on new trails with good success.  The whistle blew and we all took off, I had all the power in the world to run away off the front but I slotted in about 5th.  Then before I knew it we were on the trail and going uphill.  Before I knew it the top 3 had escaped, and I was still stuck behind 4th watching them getting away.  Passing can be tricky on single track, so most the time you have to wait for an opening to shot around.  The next part I didn't expect.  The guys in front of me were really that good, and my lack of experience was showing.  I couldn't corner as well and had to work much, much harder due to my inexperience.  I was working to hard, and the guys in front of me kept slipping away.  A smart person at this point would just ride there own pace, but I kept on going trying to stay on what I thought was 4th places wheel.  Turns out he was in a diff cat, and I was really in 4th with my teammate behind me.  I had convinced him to also enter his first MTB race that day.

Half way through the first lap I finally snapped, the hard pace was making me make mistakes and ride outside of my ability.  I near crashed in a corner with a rock garden, I finally waved my teammate by to let him lead for a bit.  This helped me recover a little.  I soon though lost touch with him, but this was due to a mechanical.  Going up one of the hills I shifted my front ring and my chain stuck.  This lead to me falling on my side, oh well that's racing.  It took me about a minute to fix my bike and get going, but I was well behind.  So I finally decided to do the smart thing and race the race at my pace.  The damage had been done from the early effort though.  Going into my second and third laps my body tired and I started to cramp.  The roughness of the trail was wearing hard on my upper body.   I ended up losing a few more spots and finished 7th in my class.  Overall a solid finish given the magnitude of the feat I was trying to pull off.  Next time I know what to expect and how to prepare.  Riding the single track trails is a blast though, next year I hope to participate in a few more cross country races.  Well, once I get some lighter wheels.  My current ones are way to heavy and do not help with me keeping up with the leaders when I have to work that much harder.