Starting with the preride on Saturday I was feeling pretty confident, the weather was perfect and the legs weren't complaining. The course starts with a massive double track climb that's meant to thin the pack a wee bit and then gets right into the singetrack once you crest the top. A few techy sections here and there but nothing you need the brakes for. The first downhill snakes its way left and right as speeds approach 35ish. I expect them to be higher come race pace. The downhill section ends in a sloppy hairpin with really lose dirt, definitely a place for overtaking if you can find the traction before anyone does. Doubletrack allows for some more rest if needed before you hit the techy ups. They're the only real difficult part of the course and once you clear them there's plenty of flat all the way to the final downhill. The downhill to the finish is adjacent to the opening climb, speeds are approaching 60km/h with a few bends and some sandy bits that can catch you unaware.
What I really liked about the course was just how smooth and groomed it was = hardtail all the way.
Race day - So luck my start time isn't until 1:30! Means I can take a chill morning and not worry about getting there on time. Once I arrive, the parking lot is packed! 677 total participants in the day's races. I show up to the start line 15min before the gun goes off and I can barely find room to line up - this will come back an haunt me come race start.
On the line I'm basically starting from last. We're given the go ahead and the field takes off fast, I immediately try to move up so I don' get caught behind the slow guys in the single track. Unfortunately the guys are going too hard and it forces me to settle in mid pack. Maintaining my position isn't difficult through the first singletrack but I was being held back by some slowpokes. Now the first big surprise, the downhill that was so smooth yesterday is now riddled with brake bumps from the previous races. It becomes really difficult to hold my line through the turns. One guy goes careening off the track in front of me as he hits a bump while banked in a corner and loses control. No time to see if he's ok as speeds approach 35km/h and we're all still wheel to wheel. The hairpin is a mess. I take an early apex while most go deep into the turn but are forced wide when they all start to fishtail in the loose dirt. Turns out most of the guys are already out of gas from the fast start so I move up the field quite quickly.
Second lap begins and I finally have so open space in front of me so I decide to open it up. One other Expert rider gets on my wheel and we work together to move to the front. Unfortunately we now run into traffic with the Masters field in front of us. From this point on we never had any open space to try and close the gap to the leaders. I get on a train with some others from my class and follow their pace for a bit. Come the third lap we're already passing some of the Elite women who started 6 minutes before us, the traffic is incessant! Someone at the side of the trail yells that the group I'm with is 5, 6, and 7. Cue the attacks. Last lap I lose 5th place half way up the last climb but already held an attack off from 7. I maintain my place all the way through the lap and finish 6th. Not bad for first race of the season but could have done better.
Looking at the lap times of the leaders I basically kept pace with them all throughout the race. The only difference is that they got off the front on the opening lap.
Next race is Woodnewton on May 13th! 15 hours of training this week, time to go to work!
Garmin data from the race - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/173114982
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