A few weeks ago was the Chequamegon 40. Point to Point "MTB" race. But mostly ski trail, gravel road stuff. No single track. Lots of hills. Nothing that would be considered technical besides bombing rocky descents at 35 mph and avoiding huge mud puddles.
It's a total power course - basically TT'ing the whole way at aerobic threshold. I replaced my front S Works Fast Trak to one of the S Works Renegades for less rolling resistance. The morning of the race the tire lost 15 pounds of air from the night before. I decided to air it up and just stick with it and hope it didn't go flat. Damn thing didn't lose a pound of air during the race and I would have liked 5lbs less air in it - that is a lot of air.
Last year was my first year. I did it with 1.7 legs instead of 2 and got a flat, but managed to finish at 2:36. Respectable first time but still slow.
This year they introduced starting gates based on how you finished the last 2 years. So I was in gate 3 probably 400 people back - that was a huge improvement over fighting 2000 other dudes for a spot.
The week leading up to this race was poor. didn't have any good rides, legs were flat, worked a full day on friday and then drove the 3.5 hours up that night. When we started I just had no pop in the legs. The first 10 miles I suffered pretty good. It was a long ways from where I can be when I'm running good. I started to feel a bit better as the race went on but I still couldn't hold my own in the quicker groups that were up the road. I'd occasionally take a flyer from the group I was in on a downhill and bridge up to the next bunch but never did anything great.
Lea Davison blew by me at the halfway point after she flatted early in the race. I kept her in my sight for 15-20 minutes and didn't let her get much further away but I eventually faded. She was the 2nd place woman overall and just a week off the World Champs in Austria.
Eventually a teammate came up to me and helped me pick up my pace. We rode together going back and forth for 10-15 miles. Eventually after the firetower climb we hit a really tough section of Birkie trail. Constant rollers with big climbs and a gradual uphill pitch overall. He was riding SS and basically dropped me. He finished a minute 30 up on me and I came in at 2:24:30. The time was pretty good though - I'm happy. It was good for 129th place overall of 2000 or 1850 - something like that. That time last year would have been good for top 100 and gate 1
Next year I'll be starting from gate 2 though and with better legs should crack top 100.
Otherwise I've been feeling really strong lately. had some good rides recently and maybe am the strongest I've been all season, it's tough to say. Got another WORS race this weekend on a course that should suit me well and then the following weekend is the WEMS Championship race at Levis/Trow Mound.
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