MTB season has finally ended!! Saturday was the Knickerbocker 8hr, last stop in the Leave No Trace Endurance Series. Going in, I was burnt out. An 8hr race in mid-October when I am so ready to play on the CX bike...it was tough. The problem was, I needed to defend my second place in the overall behind Tinker Juarez. And of course, should he have a mechanical or other issue, I could have possibly moved into the top spot on the podium....but reality was I needed to ride strong and finish near the top to keep my 12.5 mile lead over Mike Harrison from Breakaway Bicycles. Thankfully Pete and Sharon were on site running support, because I needed the motivation - legs just plain tired. Marja was in Salinas racing the collegiate race in order to qualify for the Collegiate National Championships on 10/16-10/18 at Northstar. She was racing on one lung basically - nasty cold/illness since the previous weekend!
Back to Cool....beautiful day compared to the rain at the 24hr race here in May, actually wore a vest and arm warmers up until the start. Word for the day... "DUST." The entire first lap was maybe 12 inches of visibility except for the climbs. By the time we got around to the climb out of Salt Creek I knew I was going to have a rough go of it. Oh well, been there before.
Lap 1 done, ufff.
Lap 2, just can't find the power.
Lap 2 done, whoa.....
Lap 3 is absolute misery, but in waves....some climbs strong, the next not so much.
Lap 3 done, "MEDIC!!"
As I leave on lap 4 Pete looks at me and tells me to 'find some legs, now!'
I laughed along with Sharon in the pit. But lap 4 felt good, well as good as it can of course, that's the weird thing about this ridiculousness called racing....it hurt just as bad, but the fact I was going considerably faster somehow made it "OK."
Lap 4 done, I made up a chunk of time of Mike Harrison and the other SSers. That's pretty much how the next 3 laps went, just consistently making my way up through the field. If I had another 8 hours I was golden! On that lap I heard Tinker dropped, Pete was like a little school kid because he thought I may have a chance to make up the miles Tinker lead me by in the Series Standing. I spent that next lap trying to do the math while I pushed even faster, but on the hike-a-bike out of Knickerbocker my 1st grade math skills came back to me and I realized I would not catch him....bummer, but I still had to defend my 2nd - just needed to finish on the same lap as Mike Harrison. He was racing a geared bike this day, just as he did at Cool, and rumor on the course was he was with Tinker (relatively speaking) for the first 3 laps - fast... I just pushed my 34x18 as fast as I could around the 12.4 mile course.
Going out on lap 7, Pete told me to enjoy it as Harrison was NOT going to be able to make an 8th lap, in fact he finished only 7:30 ahead of me. I officially had a new bench mark for suffering! End result, I was one step below (on the podium) of a 3 time World Champion, 4 time national Champion and 2 time Olympian... Not bad for a single speed! Great feat to help remind my kids you can do anything if you set your mind to it!
What a crazy day - Marja took 4th at her race which is amazing considering how bad her lungs were! She will be racing Nationals Friday in the XC and then Saturday in Short Track!!!
...it's not everyday you get to share the podium with Tinker Juarez
A huge thanks goes out to Marja, Pete and Sharon for supporting me this season, without their work in the pits I would never have finished where I did! They are amazing! All three of them sacrificed a lot for my racing. Of course Chris, his dumb-a$$ was there when this whole nonsense started at Worlds in Laguna Seca, I wish he could have been there for all the races. And to the source of all our lunacy: Scott and Linda....w/o their whacked out desire for the EPIC ride and always wanting to do it faster I might be sitting around playing Xbox (ooopppps, I did last night!)!!!
Now is time to play...
And let the record show, I built up a new CX rig and not only does it have gears in the back, it has another derailleur up front - that's 2 derailleurs!!
.JPG)
