Race Report: Ponca’s Revenge

I love marathon mountain bike races!!! The last few races have been ok, but I really needed a good solid race again – I got it on Saturday which marked the 3rd event of the Nebraska State Lottery Psycowpath Series held at Ponca State Park, NE. This series gives you an option to race a 3 hour Marathon event along with offering the category XC races. I opted for this over the CAT 2 Open race because I’ve been obsessing about ultra-endurance and marathon racing lately.

I felt like I prepared really well for it. Saturday morning came when the alarm went off at 6am. Google maps showed that I was about 2 hours from the park which gave me plenty of time to get there, relax and get a good warm up in. In the Marathon class there are no age or category breakouts – just run what ya brung – so I wasn’t too surprised when I saw a few CAT 1 riders at the start. I thought it’d be fun to see how I stack up with them. At about 10am we were off. I settled into about mid pack going into the first singletrack…and I pretty much stayed there the whole race. Most of the race I was by myself. During the 6th and 7th lap I passed a few other marathoners, two were on the same lap and a few others I think were a lap or two down. I felt awesome through the whole thing.

My lap times were pretty consistent, only dropping a couple minutes in the last 2 laps vs. the first 2. I set out to do at least 6 laps and I finished with 7 – I was smiling all the way through, hitting the downhills just as hard on the 7th lap as I did on the first lap. I stayed fueled and hydrated perfectly. With all the climbing here (which there was surprisingly a good amount of), one full 70oz. Camelback I emptied just after finishing my last lap.

My pedal strokes have been sort of choppy this year…but I found a rhythm during the last hour of this race. Regardless of speed my pedal cadence got smooth…aha! Smooth is fast ;) I had been repeating this in my head through most of the race regarding the singletrack downhills…but it wasn’t until the last 2 or 3 laps when the fatigue started to settle in that my brain applied it to my pedal strokes. This was key.

I love marathon mountain bike races!!!