Cry Baby 2011

The extra mileage added onto the course this year makes this race an official motherfu**er, but in a good way. 9.3 miles a lap and over 1,300 ft. of climbing per. Even with the advantage of gears, it would be brutal. Running the 34/18 on the singlespeed today made for an extra special sweet kind of suffering, a kind I have not experienced for quite some time. I don't recall a mountain bike race in which I saw my heartrate pop over the 180 mark quite so many times as it did this morning. Rarely did it dip below 170. Just to change things up and make it interesting this year I tried a new race prep routine. It was really quite simple, I did nothing to prepare. We had some friends over for dinner last night and consumed a tad too much vino. This morning I got up and had breakfast, put on most of my kit followed by some tights and a sweatshirt, gave the tires a quick squeeze before loading the bike, and left the house about 45 minutes before the start. It was cold, like 41 degrees cold. My feet never warmed up, but other than that the cold temps. didn't bother me too much. I came to work after the race, so I wasn't able to stick around and see the results. I'm pretty sure though that unless one of the other 6 or 7 expert singlespeeders dropped out, I may very well have finished DFL. But given the fact that I don't race too much cross country anymore, and the fact that in order to tackle three laps on this course without gears requires a pretty good level of fitness to begin with I was pretty happy with how the race went. I measured out the pace pretty well, and stayed real consistent all the way through (consistently in pain and suffering that is). So two weeks now until the last bike race of the season. Then it's time to switch over to some trail running, stairs, and roller skiing. Oh yeah, I'm doing a cyclocross race tomorrow too at the Winter Sports Park in Petoskey. Most of the team should be there, and I'm fully expecting a good time. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and thanks for reading.