this was the first race weekend the family has joined me on the race weekend adventures. we planned, or should i say i planned the whole weekend out...traveling, sunshine, outdoor adventure, fishing, camping, riding, racing...it was going to be great!
muthu nature had other plans...like rain the entire time except for about 4 total hours....it started on us Friday morning in bham and quit about at Tuscaloosa sunday afternoon. Luckily it was actually pretty nice when we pulled in to the White Water Center on Friday about noon...so i opted to ride immediately and hope to beat the rain. While this proved to be a good decision...the trails were already a little wet but overall in great shape.
a little climbing to start things off...
fairly wet everywhere...lots of moss growing on the benchcut...
the best shot for sure...this is as clear as the sky's would be all weekend.
I ended up in 10th about 6 minutes off my goal time. Brad finished 17th. The damage this race caused my bike was fun too...like I had no breaks on lap 3...they were gone!
the best shot for sure...this is as clear as the sky's would be all weekend.The loop was nice and I was looking forward to the race for sure. We loaded the kiddies up and went to grab the keys and directions to our cabin. it ended up being about 25 minutes from the white water center just on the edge of the cohutta wilderness and about 10 min blue ridge, ga. Nice area for sure. The cabin was fine, nothing spacial but the kids loved it. the stocked trout creek behind it was nice and would ended up being some fun!
The rain showed up about 630 friday night and fell steady and sometimes hard ALL night long. We woke up to it too...so I decided not to ride the course again on Saturday and instead go exploring around on the local dirt roads. the ride was fun...i would have liked to keep riding for a while to be honest...and of course it was raining on me the entire time
Saturday night and into Sunday morning just brought more rain...we loaded up and headed to the race...running late...and feeling strange, just not fresh...even though I should have been. The rain joined us the entire time we warm up so i don;t think the body ever really ever got "warm" and for some reason it took Dave forever to get the ball rolling...so I had cooled all the way down by the time GO came around...but once it did come...
we were off. the course was tough. and because of all the rain, the had cut the river view trail out and added more straight up climbing. the lap was shortened by about 2 miles...but more in your face climbing. no recovery until the top...this would, in my opinion, be the down fall for me...i was wanting to use the rolling terrain to gain ground and recovery from hill climbing...and taking that part out didn't help me at all.
Once we started climbing hard core, I fell off the pace immediately. I tried my hardest to minimize my loses on the way up with the intentions of gaining some of that back on the downhill and hopefully finding my rhythm for lap # 2. I pushed the pace hard on the downhill, maybe a little too hard cause I busted my arse once...but came through the transition about 35 sec off the chase group. I worked hard climbing on lap 2 but just had no help from the legs. They were so flat...as I started the 3rd lap, the climb seemed so long...it was raining pretty hard by this time too and I was cooked...the trails had water coming down them like we were riding in a ditch. it was nice...i got passed a bunch on the 3rd lap...dropped a few spots to my age class dudes and to the 40+ group...nothing I could do. I busted it a few more time...several actually. I was glad that race was over when it did finale end.
I ended up in 10th about 6 minutes off my goal time. Brad finished 17th. The damage this race caused my bike was fun too...like I had no breaks on lap 3...they were gone!not the report I wanted ot be giving on the first ever Kenda Cup East. it's funny how sometimes you just ain't got it and sunday was a day like that for me...I did fall out of 1st overall in the series by 4 pts. I'm ok though...5 more races is plenty of time to make that up...I hope.
