Winter Park Race 7 - The King of the Rockies

Winter Park Race 7, The King of the Rockies race was Saturday. In my pre-race post I questioned whether after peaking in early August and working night shifts for two weeks I could pull off a podium finish. The answer was a definitive "No"! Ramine eloquently summed it up by reminding me that "you only can make so many withdrawls from the bank before there is nothing left". Saturday, I had nothing left!

We left for Winter Park Friday night with a super crew of people. The crew consisted of Jo and I, Chris and Lizzy who were visiting from Maryland, John and Rachel from Denver, John from Phoenix Mulitsport and Lauren who kindly offered us all beds at her Condo. We all met at our place and grilled a few turkey burgers before hitting the road. Once we got to Lauren's laughs, stories, and smiles kept everyone up later than planned, but it was worth it. James headed up Saturday morning, but we didn't see him until after the race.

The race started in the town of Frasier, a 30 min bike path ride away from Winter Park. The first 3 miles was flat fireroad that lead to a long singletrack climb. My age group rode the entire 3 miles together in a giant pack. On the 29er I easily loitered at the front taking a few pulls, but mostly hanging out in second place. With about a half mile to go an RMR guy attacked and broke away from the pack. I caught him and rode his wheel to the singletrack. At the singletrack I pulled ahead into 1st for about five minutes before deciding to slow down. It didn't make sense for me to take the lead so early in the race, I was tired and there were still about 21 miles to go. Once I slowed down it didn't take long for a two man break to catch me followed by a straggler named Jason. I settled into 4th on the rest of the climb up to Morse Pass. Near the top, the trail flattened out then started a long technical descent. Jason and I rode together for the climb and most of the descent until I gapped him slightly near the bottom.

I posted this before, but you can see the landmarks I'm talking about on the profile below.

Here the course flattened out into nice singletrack except for a bump on the Chainsaw trail. I pushed hard on this section maintaining 3rd place and trying to make up some ground on the lead break of 2. At the D2 road climb I started cracking. It was about 1 hour into the race and I felt bad. My legs were strong but I just didn't have any energy. It was fatigue catching up to me. No matter how many GU's I downed or fluids I drank it wouldn't go away. I just couldn't bring myself to suffer, it was mind and body. Argh! Faster riders in my age group and the age group behind me slowly started to pass me, notching down my position one at a time.

By the time I reached the base of the last climb it was all I could do to turn the pedals over. It was obvious that my body was tired so I searched my mind for something, anything to get me up the climb. Eventually I found it and was able to focus and ignore my pain. I started the climb behind a Team GoLite expert woman, who set a good pace for me. I passed her near the top, just in time to look down and see a huge pack of guys climbing up below me. The thought of loosing even more position simultaneously disgusted me and gave me a shot of adrenaline to sprint to with. I sprinted in disgust the entire descent and short flat section to the finish. If it had only come a mile or two earlier I might have been able to work my way back up to 3rd, but that is a huge "if". I could have easily cracked before crossing the line.

I finished 6th out of 30 in my age group, 13 seconds behind 5th place which is my personal "hard deck" to always finish above. I'm really disappointed in myself and feel like I tarnished a good season with a poor result in the last race of the summer. I knew I was on the downside of my peak, but I could have been much more pro-active in managing my sleep and minimizing fatigue while working the night shifts leading up to the race. I believe I could have won this race if I prepared for it correctly and the lesson to walk away with is that proper preparation involves more than just training and form. In hindsight it's clear to me that I lost this race before I ever clipped into my bike Saturday morning and I have no one to blame but myself. With that I'll put my bat away and say that even though I'm not happy with it, 6th isn't terrible considering how bad I felt and I'm grateful to have been able to race period. At least I didn't get 7th!

Jo finished 2nd and even though she only raced 5 out of 7 races this year she won the series. Good job Jo!!! Chris, Lizzy, John, and Rachel were all at the finish. Chris got a few pics of us finishing and then we all hung out for hours through the awards ceremony waiting to see if we could win a Spot Singlespeed that was being auctioned off. John and I killed some time exploring the terrain park and took some shots. I'll post those soon.

John from Phoenix raced in his second mountain bike race ever and James finished the series winning 2nd place in Expert men. Congratulations James!