At the end of the XC race on Saturday, I told myself that all I needed to do was finish the race and I could bail on Sunday's Time Trial and Super D races. At first, it was a lie, easily seen through by the part of my brain that answered to my legs. But then it became a promise (to be broken), which gradually was believed. This helped with the last third of the XC race (first mental rule of endurance racing: only think about the next portion, not the entire insurmountable thing). After the race and a bit of recovery, I was ready to break the promise and think about the time trial. On Sunday morning, Scott and I headed up to Alvin Meadows to check out the course. Our pre-ride cum warm-up took about 20-30 min. The course could be described in one word: twisty. It didn't go straight for more than 20 feet in any direction, left-right or up-down. Add in a few rocks and trees, and you had a great all around test of mountain biking skills. This was no fireroad aerobic test, but also an assessment of handling, acceleration, and power.
As you'd expect in a time trial, we went off on 1 minute intervals. I was nervous for the start. Unanswered questions nagged at me... I wasn't too worried about riding hard, but could I carry speed through the turns? Could I run cleanly over the rocks? As I waited for the countdown to my start, I calmed and emptied my mind. And.... GO! The course was rolling up and down, but first part of the course was more down than up. Downhill, pick up speed, brake for the turn, lean the bike, hit the gas, out of the saddle for a short climb, lean again for the next turn, hammer out the turn into the straight, on and on for the longest 3 miles. I had a clean run, about as fast as I could have gone. The course was a blast, and the preride was essential. A couple more times around would have helped, as there were a few sections where I could have carried more speed if I'd remembered how the next section went.
In the second half of the course, there was more climbing than descending. My quads were burning at this point, which I took as a sign that I was doing something right. A tight rock squeeze, up a steep pitch, and I knew the end was close. Finally, off the singletrack onto a last bit of fireroad to the finish. I was done in 20:46, good for 4th among the 9 Open men, slower than nearly all the Pros and Cat 1 men (but faster than all the Cat 2 men :) All in all, a good, fast, clean run with no mistakes and a high intensity effort. A cool down, an hour's rest, and time to start thinking about the next race: the Super D, subject of the next post.
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