I decided to sign up for this series as a way to get some exposure to different mtn biking courses and to help my skills by forcing me to ride a greater variety of terrain than just FI, Sweetwater & the 24 HOP course. Then I talked Erik into them. He usually only races the Epic Rides events and maybe 1 or 2 others that I send him. One nice thing is that these are shorter so they are more like training rides than epic rides.
I signed up for the Beginner Women’s category. I had an ulterior motive since only 1 person in my AG did this race last year. With my wonderful logic, I’d place no matter what if things went my way! Erik raced Sport Men which he expected to be fairly competitive.
We headed up to White Tanks on Friday making a quick stop by the PF Chang’s Expo to pick up my packet and goodies for the half mary on Sunday. Yes, I was doing a half mary piggy-backed on a mtn bike race. Yes, I have lost it. We got out to the park and found a camping spot and then headed up to the course to pre-ride. My course was 2 ‘internal’ loops for a total of about 10 miles. Erik’s was 3 ‘long’ loops which was about 20 miles total. For our pre-ride we decided one loop of each course was respectable – plus we’d run out of daylight if we weren’t careful.
My race started at 8:49 on Sat (waves went off about 2 mins apart) so I headed over about 7 am to check in and get my shirt and number. Met up with Elaine and Liane and got ready. I barely made it to the start line with my wave because you couldn’t hear anything be announced (thank god it is chip timed). Got there and got some random number marked on my leg; not sure anyone actually figured out what they were for. Headed out and realized that I was surrounded by junior riders. Some of those kids are fast! And some have better bikes than I do. L
The first lap was nerve racking in a few spots because some of the kids could haul ass down a hill but couldn’t make it up so they’d have to walk. MBAA ran the course backward and in some places I think it made it much easier but others it actually got more difficult. There was one spot I nearly wiped out on Friday because the sun was in my eyes and I couldn’t tell that I should have gone right instead of left and into a giant rock (going through a dip no less). Barely kept that one standing. I checked my Garmin at mile 2.4 and saw I was pretty much on track for a 40 min lap (~5 miles per lap) which is where I wanted to be so I had something left for lap 2. There was one spot where you got this sweet downhill into a wash or similar and then it turned left for a bit before heading up a steep hill. That sucked with no momentum. Shortly after making it out of there I knew I was getting close to being back and the rest was fairly flat so I went to check my Garmin to see how I was doing. At this point I realize that my Garmin has managed to dislodge itself from my qr wrist strap and is somewhere on the trail. I throw my bike down and head back to the hill I just climbed hoping I’d lost it there. Didn’t see it so I decided to just slow down where I could on lap 2 and see if I could spot it. At least I know it was after mile 2.4 – wherever that is!
Started my 2nd lap and things were much better as the faster/better people were already out on lap 2 and the juniors were done (1 lap) so I could keep an eye out for a black/red Garmin that probably looks like a rock when flipped over. I let everyone I passed know that I had lost it. I was furious the whole lap and actually cleared things that I had to walk on the first lap. Most of the places where it was likely I had hit a tree and lost it were places where I couldn’t slow down because of the terrain and such.
I finished in some unknown time, dropped my chip and found Erik to let him know that I was going hike back out to look for it. I dropped off my bike and changed some of the stuff; stopped to talk to Zac and Nate (Elaine & Liane were still out). I had just started to hike out when I heard Erik yelling at me….someone found it! It was seriously my lucky day because there was no way I was going to run the next day without it. Somehow one of the little pins had dislodged and the unit fell off. I don’t even know where it would have happened – and I’m surprised because it takes me some effort to get the unit off the strap.
Sadly, I ended up finishing 8/9 in my AG. Not stopping to walk back and slowing down would have maybe gotten me into 7th. So my logic failed. Still not a bad race and I finished in 1:06 which is faster than the 1:20 I had as a goal time.
Erik, on the other hand, finished 5th in his AG. And he didn’t think he’d do very well.
We are off to
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