Sunday, June 8, 2008

Hardest race ever

This weekend was the Brighton Stage race. It is three races over two days. The first race was a time-trial on the torn shirt trail which was 6.5 miles. When we got there, the guys at tailwind it should take between 20-30 to do this lap. So I was early and decided to go slow and preride it. It took me 40 minutes and I was worried that I wasn't going to make it back in time. So I was an idiot once again and got myself tired before I raced. During the race, I ended up doing the lap in 38 minutes. It was a pretty cool trail but a little overgrown. I came in 3rd of 3 for this race. Later that day, at 4:00, we did the short track race. This race is just like a criterion except on mountain bikes. We had to do 5 laps and each lap was .8 miles each. This stupid race was all in the grass. I didn't do to well at this one because I don't have speed on my side..especially on grass. I also came in 3rd of 3 for this race. We went home, watched "clash of the titans" and I returned today. When I got there, the experts/elites were just about to leave. They had to do 4/5 laps and it was muddy from the downpouring last night. I was keeping track of lap times and noticed that they were going pretty slow for each lap. By the time my class started, it was unbelievably hot and muggy. I knew that I wasn't going to do as good as guys who were just racing today, so I put myself in the back and was trying to hang on to someones rear. Unfortunately that didn't last too long and I lost my group in a matter of minutes. I kept getting passed by the subsequent groups and by the middle of the first lap, I was suffering pretty bad from the heat. I finished the first lap and was gonna call it quits. Unfortunately if I quit, I would be DNF'd for the whole stage race. So I changed my mind after a few minutes of resting. The other two laps were as slow as growing trees. For most of those laps, there was someone riding my tail the whole time. It made racing a bit enjoyable but was still really tough. I ended up in 5th of 6 for that race. I was pretty surprised that I actually beat someone. Maybe they were thinking the same thing as I and quit earlier. I don't know why this race was so hard for me other than the heat. Everyone had to put up with the heat though and I was one of a few that struggled so much. The course in my opinion was pretty tough for being 8 miles. I'd say it's harder than Pontiac lake if they were the same distance. The climbs aren't as big, but there are more of them, and there weren't too many places to get speed. I still ended up with an award for the stage race for sticking it out. I don't really care if it was last, or 3rd, I won in my mind for not quitting and actually finishing the hardest race I've done. Miles to date: 753

1 comment:

Pete Hall said...

Oh man, I only did the XC race at Brighton and it was one of the hardest races I've done in a long while to! I was just happy with finishing (last) too!