Friday night I joined Robin Farrell at the fire fighters calender launch...hehe. Yummmmm, great food :) Late night (10pm is late for me), then early morning drive up island to Naniamo.
Warming up I was kicking myself for not bring all my winter riding gear again!! But once the race got going the temp was perfect! It was a really fun course with a great mix of fast straight aways, tight technical single track (I wish was was UCI legal), a sweet BMX course and of course some leg killin mud. After hammering the first couple flat grass corners we were shot down a rutted out gravelly decent onto a rolling tight singletrack section. Geoff Robson had the crash of the day there, I miss it but saw him rolling around on the ground for a while before picking himself up and finishing the race. Witnesses say he flew and rolled and hit the ground really hard.....OUCH. From there we moved onto the BMX track, a very technical track by cross standards. Once you roll over the starting gates you hit the steep jumps hard and fast, it was really hard to keep you bike under control while trying to maintain any speed. I cased the last double in the very last lap hard, but managed to stay up, when I gassed it to pass one of the masters men racers before hitting the singletrack again. There were a number of racers walking really stiff after not being as lucky in the BMX track......it's definitely not soft landing.
After the BMX track we headed to the short stair run up then into the mudddddd slog. It's funny, I pinned through here and I felt like I was not moving!!! But I was really happy to hear that I wasn't the only one. Once the track opened up, you had 2 corners to recover before hitting the final confusing mess of corners that switched back into itself and around it and, and....it was confusing in pre-ride, but when you hit it in the oxygen deprived state of racing, people were blowing corners left, right and center!!
photo from Geoff RobsonI had a great race, feeling strong and took the yellow winner towel for women 20-35.....after cheering Regan onto an awesome 9th place against some really fast guys....we packed up and drove back to Victoria to host the Pro City Sistas wine tasting and Rom Com party. Bridesmaids is hilarious!!!!!!
Another early morning drive up to Naniamo in the morning took us to Bowen Park, and the same really hard course as last year. This is one of the most challenging courses I've ever done, a lot of hard steep climbing, rough singletrack and deep sand! I decided to race with the big boys today....gave Regan a kiss and the throat cut...the gloves are down!!
Norm does his little pre-race talk to the group and before he's even got his bike turned around the guns goes off!!! haha, crazy start, no one was ready for that one...but we're off. My typical good start doesn't mean a whole lot racing with the men, and as we gas it up the long road start, I find myself right in the thick of the group. I had a great race, blew a little at the 40 min marker, but working through those last 20 mins are going to make me faster....right??! Finished 8th in the men and didn't get lapped, like I did last year on this course, which was my big goal.
I'm definitely really cooked today, hurried home, got fed and cleaned up in time to make the Sunday night yoga class down at Lululemon.....only it really wasn't the best recovery yoga class and I'm sore and cooked now...haha. I think I was sweating more here then during the race!!
Thanks Regan for the yet again awesome weekend!!! Less then 2 weeks till we move into our condo :)
No comments:
Post a Comment