Monday, August 18, 2008

First Elk River Race and my First "Time" race

August 14th – First Thursday night in Elk River (Hillside) I took 3rd, about half a front wheel behind 2nd- a sweet drag race to the finish. I was pulling on him and another 10 feet I would’ve had him. First place was about a minute ahead- and is the guy that builds and designs most of the course so was not surprised there. Now that I know the course a little better we’ll see how things go this Thursday.

August 16th – I found out about this race on Thursday afternoon- thought I was going to have a weekend off! "The Bluffland Epic Enduro", part of the Wisconsin Endurance Mountain Bike Series (WEMS) I entered the 3 hour Solo Man race- my longest race effort ever.
Should be a great way to really test my lungs and legs; and whatever is still closed or tight should open and loosen up by the end of this!
No age groups and all categories were combined- sport, comp, expert, etc, all racing against each other- given that and my longest race effort to date I was very happy with the result- 6th place! It was a great time and I felt great! I really like the ultra-endurance type racing! They had a Le mans start- 100 yd dash to the bikes, which I like. I was about 9th after the first lap- took a couple laps to get to know the course- surprisingly technical, mainly due to the number of super tight uphill/downhill switchbacks and some sweet, but, awkward gnarly rock "gardens". Good fun race.


Finished off the weekend yesterday with a nice long ~4hr training road ride…on the mountain bike of course…no road bike yet. Anyways, good stuff- pretty good weekend of racing/riding. Looking forward to the WORS/MNSCS Border Battle in River Falls. Whew, finally got this up to date.

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