Chequamegon 40 recap and more

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.

WORS Treadfest - a cat 1 butt whoopin'

Lake Geneva hosted the 10th race in the WORS series.  It's a good little course.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much singletrack there was.  At first it looks like another ski hill race but it was much better.  The opening section sends you straight up the hill and then straight down.  Repeat that 2 more times and you are redlined 4 minutes into the race.

Previously I was riding in the cat 2 comp category and doing well.  I knew I would be forced up for next season so I beat them to it.  Lining up with 54 other fast dudes is a little intimidating.  Especially when 10 or so of them are "pro."  Brian Matter, Cole House, Matt Shriver to name a few.  When I had exceptional races in the comp category my lap times were good enough for mid pack in the 1 field, although I would have had to knock out an extra lap.  So I was aiming for a mid pack finish.

We started out up the three climbs and I actually had good position going into the woods.  I was suffering though - every time it opened into a passing section I was getting swarmed by 1 or 2 riders.  Eventually I settled in.  I took off my sunglasses and stuffed them into my open jersey.  A minute later they flew out, if they were cheap glasses I would have left them but they weren't.  I got off my bike and ran the 25 feet back to get them.  A small group of 3 or so passed me including 2 that I fought to pass.  Back on the bike and going again. Beginning of lap 2 I blew up going up the climbs.  It was here that I worked my way to the last of the riders.  It sucked pretty good.  If I did a better job of pacing myself my overall would have been much better - it forced me to wait behind the stragglers in the single track.  Halfway through that second lap and I was going good again with 2 more to go.  I was coming up on riders at a steady rate and dispatching of them.  Last lap I managed to pass a few more and got into a good battle with another dude.  He was riding behind another guy when I came on them both in the woods.  I let them know I was going to pass and he jumps the guy in front and pretty much attacks.  I'm stuck behind for 30 seconds or so and quickly close the gap when it opens.  I attack up a climb into the remaining singletrack.  When we enter the final open section he starts sprinting and I had to put a dig in to keep in front but managed to finish ahead of him.

All the other races I was much more aggressive b/c I knew I was fast for my category.  I was too reserved this time not knowing who these dudes were or how fast they were and that slowed me down.  I finished 35th out of 49 finishers. 12 were "pro"  10 of 15 in my cat 1 age group.  I was almost exactly 20 minutes behind Brian Matter who won.  Thats a lot.  He was knocking out 27 minute laps and I was doing 32 minute laps.  Holy shit.

On the positive, my laps at the end of the race were my fastest.  Best case scenario I could have saved maybe 4 minutes total.  If I happened to do that I could have finished in 30th instead of 35th.  MF'ers are fast.

Airing it out on a fast downhill

CTFU

I guess I just want to race Mtb really fast and really well.  Those were the thoughts that made me CTFU to the 1's.  3 WORS races left on the season that I'll be doing.  I can put the good fitness from this year to good use.

Subaru Cup (The relegated version)

I've sort of been looking forward to this race all season - I knew it was the midwest regional championship and I wanted to claim that title.  Problem was it wasn't available to Cat 2 age groupers which I didn't find out until the day before.  Ultimately it's pretty insignificant so whatever.
We arrived Friday afternoon and pre rode.  The course is pretty good, plenty of technical stuff and enough climbing.  Only problem is that it's pretty short, one lap hovers around 20 minutes and the cat 2 do only 3 laps.  Usually they have the comp cat 2's separated from the sport cat 2's with the comp race doing more laps of the elite course - but because of the nature of this one race everything gets a bit messed up.
As far as race length, course options and starting waves, the normal WORS races are actually better for comp riders.  Probably even the cat 1's as they would get more time on the course.

So I was feeling excellent, legs were in great shape, nothing left to do but race.  We take off and I'm gone and out of sight in 2 minutes, I really wanted to push it hard because it was only 1 hour long.  I'm passing dudes left and right.  I'm near the end of the first lap and following a rider who I know from the wave in front of me, and we come upon a section where we need to make a hard right turn into some singletrack.  The guy i'm following makes a shallow right turn and cuts through the course to the next climbing section.  About 3 seconds after this happens I realize what we did.  Ultimately we bypassed around a minutes worth of singletrack.  The way the course winds on itself and the poor marking at that corner allowed it to happen.  As a matter of fact, we weren't the only ones to do it.  We weren't bushwacking to do this either, it was a wide dirt/grass path section. Anyway, I decide to just keep going at that point and figure it out later.  When I go through the start finish I see the race director and yell to him to fix the marking, people are cutting trail.  2nd and 3rd time through they moved the arrow and added course tape to better direct you.

Second lap and I'm suffering a bit more and not riding as clean.  By the 3rd lap I start to settle down a bit and ride cleaner.  I finish alright.  My finish time was just over 1:01.  By the time I change and talk to a bunch of other riders about what happened I'm summoned to the timing trailer.  The officials are aware of what happened and the guy I was talking to was recommending that we add time (about a minute) to those of us that cut that section as opposed to DQ'ing.  Fine with me, that still leaves me 1st.  Well, what ended up happening was moving me down to 3rd  because the next 2 riders were within still within a close enough time  that they felt it would be the fair thing to do.  I'm not really arguing so that is fine too.  The only thing that bugs me is the course marking, and the fact that I can't really know how I truly compare time wise with the other riders if this didn't happen.  I think some of the times got screwed up a bit b/c I finished 1 minute up on riders the wave in front of me.  Add a minute to my time for a penalty and we're even.  But they started 1 minute earlier so I would have ended up being a minute faster still  - somehow some people's times are wrong and it's too much to figure it out.

I did run into a few KC folks, namely those of the Ethos team.  Maybe I should just take the advice of Garet and CTFU.

olympics - vinokourov

Dopers shouldn't be allowed to compete in the olympics.  End of story.  It's a shame that a convicted doper won the gold - it's meaningless now.  Probably half the field was doped anyway.

WORS - Sunburst Showdown

What a crappy race.  Thanks to all the volunteers and people who put it on, but that place had no business being a MTB race.  Literally - what a shitty venue.  It was wide open on the side of a ski hill.  Almost no singletrack and most of it was created by a lawnmower through a grass field.

Hot and dusty, mid 90's.  Took the lead into the singletrack, had another strong rider on my wheel.  Halfway into the lap my chain bounced up and caused my front chain guide to rotate.  With my front Q ring, every pedal stroke was grinding the chain into the chain guide.  I heard it grinding but didn't think to get off and fix it.  In hindsight, I should have, because for the next 1.5 laps I was going backwards in a hurry.  I was blowing up trying to hold the leaders wheel and probably got passed by at least 15 people - people who I know I can beat any day.  I thought I was just suffering from the heat - I wasn't sure but it sucked.  Thought about pulling out after lap 2 but stayed in.
A short bit later and my chain guide shifted up a bit or enough metal ground out that all of a sudden I had 50 more watts and started moving again.  I was pissed that I didn't fix it earlier and it made me realize that had to have been what was wrong.  Sure enough I start passing back all those who passed me - maybe 5 on the 3rd lap and 5 on the 4th and I quickly dropped anyone on my wheel.  It was a little too late though.  I finished 8th overall and 3rd in the age group.  2:30 off the overall win.  I looked at my lap times from the garmin and found that my last 2 laps were each 2 minutes faster than the first 2 not including the start loop.  So maybe I lost 4 minutes total.
Whatever.  The venue was a big let down - will never return again.  3 of our group pre rode on Saturday after driving 3 hours - and decided that paying to race there is a crime.  They skipped the race and rode real singletrack 30 minutes away.

The front view of my chain guide.  The inside  lost a few mm's of metal and it took 0.5 mm off the top of my chain. 

WORS #5 - Red Flint Firecracker

WORS stop #5 in Eau Claire.  This is close as the racing gets to us in La Crosse so it feels like a home course.  Jane and I still opted to go up Saturday and pre-ride.  She was going to race in the sport category and needed to check out the loop.
The course is flat, fast and flowing.  The rain earlier in the week made it nice and not dusty or too dry.  Only 300 feet of climbing or so per lap.
After last week taking 1st overall I knew I could repeat again.  Although with not much climbing it would be tougher.  The flatness of the course evens the playing field, also the less technical nature makes it harder to break things up (although there were some tricky sections).  I sort of fell asleep during the call ups.  I still don't have a call up which sucks, but I got swarmed from my 1st/2nd row and was starting from 4th row when they yelled GO.

Erik P leading out

Fortunately there was a longer than average lead out of double track and gravel.  After a few turns the pace slowed and I was able to work my way up to the front.  I took the lead and put my head down.  Just before we hit the whoops, singlespeed teammate Erik P came around.  It was us going 1 & 2 into the woods.  We had a small gap and settled down a bit.  We hit a passing section and a Bikes LTD rider came around and took the lead.  I was still behind Erik but he soon let me around to give chase.  Neil from Bikes LTD was riding good.  I was sticking his wheel but he was quick and I was a bit concerned he would gap me.  The last  2 WORS races I've been off the front or by myself and haven't really had someone to follow.  It stayed like this for 2/3 through the first lap.  He started to get a bit sloppy in the singletrack and I figured I would take over.  I pulled though in a passing section and he held my wheel for awhile.  By this point we were off the front together with one other guy chasing.  I told him we should work together in the flats and open to keep our gap.  Well that lasted all of a few minutes because I heard a crash like noise and he was 10 seconds off the back next time I saw him.  We came though for the 2nd lap and he was still 10 seconds.  I kept looking back to see if he was closing in the open parts but he was still back there.  We popped out for another long open gravel section and the gap was slowly getting bigger.  I wanted to get out of sight so the carrot could stop hanging in front of him.  After awhile I saw no one and settled down but apparently too much.  End of the 2nd lap I saw Neil and another rider closing in.  I upped the pace again, sprinting out of corners and putting more power down on the climbs.

navigating a tech descent - steeper than it looks

Came through for the 3rd and final lap and didn't see anyone behind.  If I kept it upright and didn't flat I'd probably take the win.  Entered the woods and a friend told me to keep the pace up.  He was riding all around the course and appeared at the halfway point and told me what I translated as I had dropped them for good.  Was passing the straggling elites at this point which is always a good feeling.

Rolled through for win in my age group and my wave.  There was some waiting to see if I took the overall win again as the 40+ wave had started 3 minutes behind.  At 3:04 the first place 40+ crossed the line.  Took the overall by a small margin - he basically did what I did last week - worked his way through a ton of traffic for a good placing overall.

So 3 races and 1 4th overall and 2 first overall's.  I'm pretty happy to say the least.  People have been asking when I'm going to upgrade.  I've decided to wait until after the Subaru Cup (pro XCT race).  This also serves as the Midwest Regional Championship.  Not sure if it's worth doing it that way or what that really means, but I'll try to be fast for that one.  I've got a good plan and it starts with more miles and hours than I've done recently and ramping up to the middle of August.  It's such mental sport - and I'm in a good place.  I'm only getting faster and I'm confident that trend will continue both from a fitness standpoint and ninja singletrack standpoint.