What a Weekend

I arrived at Maplelag Saturday afternoon. Registered, and went out for a preride of the course with Ben Rogowski and Amy Sportel of Freewheel. Crazy course- I loved it! Some of the drops were kinda sketchy, but really fun! The lap worked out to be a good long warm-up for my first ever Short Track race at 5:00. Fast, fast race- much different than what I'm used to. ~1min 40sec laps for 18 minutes. I started well, but mechanical trouble came early. My big ring could not hold the torque because of some teeth that are too wore out. Each lap the chain would skip in some rough stuff and the short but steep power climb- where eventually in the 4th lap, the chain completely jumped off the ring and ended that. Got a taste of ST and it was cool- I'll definitely try it again.

Sunday, TJ and I went out for a warm-up before the race where I got some great coaching. With this, I was ready to rock at the line! This was good because from the word "go" it was a FAST ~1/4 mile dash on ski trail to the first singletrack section- I got there in about 13th and avoided the bottleneck going in. It was very hot (~85) and while the tree's shade was nice, they also cut out any breeze, which in the slow twisty singletrack would have helped- it was HOT! A few riders got by me in the first lap as I was just consentrating on being smooth and not overheating. Towards the end of the first lap, some very sketchy drops got the best of a few riders ahead of me. I stayed on the pedals, kept consistent and never saw them again. Coming through to start the second lap Amy Ochs gave me a perfect hand off of the bottle and came at the perfect time- I was completely out by that point! Thanks Amy!

Then going off towards the first singletrack section of the lap again, none other than Bryan Rhody of Peace Coffee comes up beside me- he decided to move up to Comp this week also since, like me, he is trying to qualify for the 2009 USAC Nationals in Sol Vista, CO. After getting taken out at the finish line the week before at the Border Battle he seemed to be recovering pretty well, he went by and held a pretty good pace. About halfway through the second lap Jim Jaglo of LCR, wwho also moved up to Comp this week goes by but at a pace I could hold onto. Jimmy is very good through the woods so I knew we were on a fast pace, but I was at about 90% effort and able to save some energy for the wide, 1/2 mile, ski trail dash to the finish. As soon as we ducked out of the woods, learing from last week, I stayed in the gear I was in instead of upshifting and realized Jimmy had been going 100% in the singletrack and couldn't counter the attack- I went by pretty fast and held it. I glanced back and saw that Jimmy let me go so I eased up just slightly, I was now 14th overall. Well, I glanced back again, just-in-case, and apparently a train of three racers were not too far behind in the trees- still not sure where they came from! They hooked up in a draft- yeah we were going that fast- went by Jim and I had a target on my back. I dropped the hammer, HARD- everything I had, legs burning like a nitro funny car engine and top speed, top gear drag raced it all the way to the line. They couldn't catch me...finished in 14th overall which is about where I was finishing overall in Sport! They finished 15, 16, and 17th all less than a second behind me, Jimmy was 4 seconds back in 18th. It was a great showing for my first Comp race! I'll be staying in this class. TJ took third in the Time Trial, second in the Short Track, and won the XC race on Sunday by a healthy margin- enough to vault over Doug Swanson and won the overall for all three stages in the Expert category, nice work TJ!

On another note, Jay Richards, his family and all the crew that put this show on did a TREMENDOUS job!! Everything was top notch here: the food, the course, the lodging, everything. An amazing event.

After this, I went up to visit some good friends in Solway, MN for the 24th annual "Pig Hill". Yep, a pig roast! I love goin up there! Camping, nice big bonfire, guitars and a fiddle; it was great to catch up with some people I don't get to see very often. Funny thing, it seems like everytime I go up there I leave with another nickname- and this time was no different- "Paco (and sometimes Milt) the Bartender". Basically it had something to do with about 12 or so Sombrero's, limes, a bottle of Tequila....and a conga line.

Made the long drive back today and finished the weekend off with a good two hour road ride this afternoon to keep things loose and ready to go. Still unsure about making the drive to Rhinelander this weekend for the WORS race. I need a big ring.