This was the last race of the MBAA series and was held in Flagstaff, starting at Buffalo Park. No one really knew how long the courses were because they didn’t post mileages. I heard rumors that the sport (thankfully, I was still running beginner) was 15, 20 or 24 miles. I think it turned out to be 24. Glad I’m not them. The beginner course was about 12 – about right compared to the rest of the races. They changed up the start times for this race and had the guys (sport guys) going early, before the beginner women. I went into this race thinking I was close to making the top 5 for the series. I was also hoping that for whatever reason, people wouldn’t show up?? At the start I was chatting with some girls in my category and we counted and came up with 6 women racing in our AG. This secured 6th for me and meant I had to pass someone to get 5th. J
The race starts on a very wide road/urban trail and doesn’t fall into singletrack until about .5 mi after the start. Once you hit singletrack however, you hit the large rocks and boulders that no one in my category wants to ride down. So this immediately meant lots of congestion and giggling girls. Finally we got spread out and I got going and immediately like the trail – aside from the fact I was climbing. Finally we hit the road crossing and beginners were directed across the road and to the left to start the Rocky Ridge trail. It lived up to its name. For the longest time I felt like I was doing an awful lot of climbing as well as the patented ride 20’ walk 10’ method. Yeah this kind of sucked. Finally the trail turned downhill and I could ride for extended periods of time. I had been passed by at least one girl in my AG (among others) and was pretty sure there was at least 1 person behind me. I enjoyed this rocky downhill (mostly since I was tired of tossing my leg over my bike) and was actually kind of sad when I got dumped back on the road. We took the road back UP to where we had crossed the first time and went right instead, to do the other half of the Rocky Ridge trail. This side climbed too! Rocks and uphill are not cool. Luckily this section was short lived and I saw a deer. Entertainment at mountain bike races. The trail hit the road and then turned into Lower Oldham. This was fun, aside from some rather large rocks you had to over. I ran into a guy who had crashed and dislocated his shoulder, sucked. I kept moving and was totally enjoying the flow of the trail. We ended up back on the trail we came out on. This means, if you weren’t keeping track, we are now going downhill and I was having a blast! My fun was stalled by an EMT looking for the guy who had wrecked. I guess someone else was hauling ass down the trail and actually ran into one of the EMTs out there. Oops. I knew this was shortlived and I soon arrived back at the crappy, rocky descent we all walked on the way out. I tried to ride up as much as I could but finally had to succumb to my inability to ride over things and I walked the rest of the way up the hill. Got back to the singletrack and I was home free! Except for a horrible headwind on the finish stretch.
