WORS - Camrock

Sunday was the latest installment of the WORS series. This time we rode in circles just outside of Madison, WI. It was a new venue to the WORS circuit and it was pretty good. Lots of climbing which is good for me and some technical stuff, also good for me. I traveled to the city of hippies with 2 other La Crosse jerks on Saturday eve to stay at some other jerks house - formerly of La Crosse. This jerk and his wife were gracious hosts and provided us with a pretty good pasta dinner and a homemade sauce that was amazing. We settled in and watched "get him to the greek" which was pretty mediocre. I brought a sleeping bag and a pad and tossed and turned on the living room floor. Awoke at 7am feeling very sleepy, breakfast at some diner at 9, at the race course by noon for our 1:30 start. It was supposed to cool down on Sunday, but it did not. The sun was blazing and it was hot. Not Missouri/Kansas hot mind you, but Wisconsin hot. This means temps in the upper 80's. Although I do miss living in KC, this summer looked pretty stupid weather wise - forget that.

The course started up a long steep grassy climb before you emptied into singletrack. Earlier in the week my legs felt great. However, I could tell I didn't have the pop from earlier in the week during warm up. Still no top end, but enough mid level power to get me through. I was excited though as this was the first race on the epic 29er. All my rides before had been impressive and I was hoping this would be no different.

Anyway, we go and I get a poor start. Not aggressive enough at the start and stuck behind some slower riders. 2 minutes into the race and I'm 45 seconds down on the leaders. This is no new scenario for me and MTB races though. I just have a hard time going 100% for the first part of the race. First lap was good enough though as I was keeping pace with some of the LaCrosse posse, I eventually faded a bit and had to take it down a notch. 2nd lap it started raining and turned everything very slick. There were lots of hike a bikes up the tech uphill stuff. I got caught up at one time, couldn't clip back in from running and lost a few spots. got going, not clipped in and fell again, and bobbled some more. I think I lost about 1 minute and probably 5 spots during this spell. I finally got going and settled down a bit. By then, the rain was tapering and things were drying up quick. I got behind a group of 4 who were apparently out for a Sunday freaking cruise. I stayed behind in the single track as they were holding conversations with each other. I should have been way more aggressive here and ran them off the trail and not waited until it opened up. But once it did open up I told them to move over and quickly dropped them as I put the newly recharged hammer down. A few tried to make the move with me but it was 1/2 lap to go of the 3rd and final lap and I was irritated with lost opportunity. I began ripping some trail on my way to bridging up to and passing 2 more. I got a brief glimpse of what I was capable of when I can ride unimpeded and I knew I was flying. I rolled in 10 minutes down on the overall cat 2 winner. Finished 35 out of seventy something finishers. 7 out of 10 in my age group - which isn't great.

Overall a good race though. Got a little beat up with my falls on the 2nd lap and took some knocks to both knees. The bike was flawless. There were some sections that were pretty rough and a lot of people were talking about how beat up they got. I actually felt decent at the end of my race and could have easily knocked out another lap if I had to. That bike smoothed everything out like butter.

Next weekend we're traveling to the great north woods of Wisconsin to stay at a cabin with some friends. there just so happens to be a WEMS endurance MTB race 30 minutes from where we're staying. So I'll be lining up in the 3 hour solo race on saturday. I hope my upgraded parts come in by then.