Racing Block

It’s been a while since I’ve written a race report, or anything on this site for that matter.    The Steamboat Stinger was the end of a big racing block for me.  After the Bailey Hundo I started a build period that lasted 3 weeks, which also included the Firecracker 50, with the Breckenridge 100 as my goal.

The Breck100 was one of my A races for the year.  It’s such a hard event, and to do well there you need to go prepared and with confidence.   I was very happy with my Breck100 race this year.  I PR’d by 15min, and finally broke the top 20 overall, and 15th in the pro/open class with the strongest field to date (in my opinion).  The highlight though was enjoying the whole race, and never feeling like I wanted to stop, which is really easy to do since the end each loop puts you back at the start/finish.  My nutrition was dialed and my fitness was where I thought it should be.  My goal time was 9:40, but ended up 9:48.

Not much happened between the Breck 100 and the next race.  I did a lot of recovery, with some easy rides, with the exception of one ride that kicked my butt the week after Breckenridge.  A reminder that the Breck 100 is a stupid hard 100 mile race.

After the Breck100, I ended up getting a spot in the Laramie Enduro last minute.  This race is very deceiving, as it’s mostly rolling hills very fast for 50 miles, then the hardest part of the course the last 20.   I always get blown up at mile 52.  Nothing changed for this year, still felt like I blew up at mile 52, but I did PR by 10 min, and ended up 15th overall.

The following weekend, I lined up at the PV Cycle Derby, the last race of the RME series.   I was feeling great going into this race was was hoping to improve my time and overall placing.  I ended up 4th in the Pro/Open and 6th overall. Beat my time by 10min, and brought home some cash for 6th fastest time.

Finally, the last weekend of racing after three in a row and a big hundy.  The Steamboat Stinger was still felling really good, and seemed to be recovering well from the other races.  Though the course doesn’t suit me as well as the last three race.  This one has a couple of good climbs, and descents over two laps.  My goal was to get a top 20, which I did with 19th.  I was pretty happy with that since I started way off the back with a dropped chain and poor start position within the first mile I was at least 40th place.  I also had a very close time split between laps.

All in all, it was a successful race block.  I’m still feeling motivated and planning to training hard.  I have a three week break between races and prep for some XC races which I haven’t done yet this year.  This means the intensity needs to pickup in my training, which is probably going to hurt.