Last year this course was a slippery mud-fest. I was having a pretty good race on the slick course until my rear derailleur blew up, taking my hanger, chain, and rear spokes with it. This race set me back pretty far last season, in terms of money and missed races.
This year the course is dry and fast. It feels like a totally different course. It's like a mountain bike course on rooty, wooded double-track and XC ski trails with the occasional artificial barrier or log jump to deal with.
I haven't trained much since Xterra Nationals, so I was not too sharp at the start. Once I realized I was in a race, I grabbed the wheel of a group of 3 that passed me. We were in 8,9,10, and 11th place and stayed in that position for about 4 laps. They were faster than me on the open sections but I was faster going through the turns. I couldn't think of a strategy to break away from them.
Eventually we caught one guy ahead of us, but none of us in the group knew how many laps were left in the race. Coming through on one lap a fan started yelling "this is it, go." there was less than 100 yards to the line, but I wound it up going as hard as I could stomp and tried to come around the guy in front of me. I dropped my chain so I had to use my momentum and get a good throw at the line. I didn't make it and got beat by a wheel. Oh well, 8th place gets me points toward the up grade I think. I'm happy with that.
Photo by Robyn
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