Race At Eeastern Tennessee State University

This weekend was two races at ETSU. There was a short course on Saturday and a long course on Sunday. Here's what happened.

Saturday had us start about 5:00 p.m. for about 20 minutes on a ~3/4 mile grass track. There was a lot of talk on the start line, a lot of hostility from other teams, you know what I mean. Only one member from each team was allowed on the front line, so I had to settle for 2nd row. No problem. The gun went off and after I made my way to the front I opened a 50 foot gap really quick. Only my teammate and training partner, Mike Anderson, was able to respond. At the beginning of the second lap Mike took the lead. Meanwhile, Will (another team mate) gaped up to me. Mike continued to pull away, but it didn't take long for Will and I to real him in. The three of us worked together until Mike started to drop off the back towards the end. It was unclear as to how many laps or how much time was left, but Will and I pressed on. Eventually I heard one lap left (turns out there were three more) so I surged away from Will. I was a little concerned when I found out that I had two more to go, but it seemed that my surge broke Will and Mike so I put it on cruise for the last lap and finished first place.



Sunday was an early morning cross country race starting at 8:30, which meant I had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. I was feeling great but the race was pretty disorganized to say the least. There were many problems and I made a lot of mistakes. First, as I sprinted off the start line, I found that my chain would not stay on the cogs without skipping even though it worked perfectly the day before. So I rode the entire race with "new chain on worn cassette" type pedaling action. Whatever. I was back a little bit off the leaders, but made my way up to top five. Then, as I was about to move up to Mike and Will who were hammering off the front, my front tire washed out unexpectedly and I rode into some vines. I backed out of the tangled vines and got back on course. It took about seven minutes and a hard effort but I got back up to Mike and Will.



Soon enough, we realised that we were destroying every one so we chilled out with the pace. It was pretty easy. But then, on a descent that I did not get to pre-ride, Mike and Will put a little distance on me and I did not see the safe line around this huge drop-off. I went over, misjudging the height of the drop and went right over the bars. I landed directly on top of my head. It didn't hurt bad, but I was kind of shaken up. Whatever.



I catch Mike and Will again, still dawdling the pace. Meanwhile, more of our team mates gaped up to us. This made me mad so I told Mike to start moving fast. He whipped up the pace and finally there was a race. Mike and I pressed on alone. I was still feeling really strong but then I did something stupid. I let Mike get a little bit ahead on a long off-camber down hill. After that he just rolled away on his twenty niner. I was trying hard to bring him back, but I knew he was making up time on descents over me. I could tell that relative to Will and Mike, my technical skills were lacking. The course had a lot of off-camber sections, a lot of loose, soft dirt, and a lot of multi-directional roots. I was not flowing like water.



Well, at the end of the day, I wound up in second place to Mike. My technical skills have been a little lacking because of limited trail time since I have moved down here. There has been a lot of rain, so for safety reasons, I have avoided the trails which are more technical than the trails in Michigan. I have only been off-road twice in the past two and a half weeks. This is bad for me because I need to ride trails at least twice a week to keep up on technical skills and overall body strength. However, these races told me that the fitness is definitely there. Modifications in my training and a better environment have really helped increase my physical fitness. I feel very strong and my recovery is excellent. I have recovered easily from these races.

I will try to find a link to the results and maybe some pictures, but it will be hard because this race was really low key and poorly run.

I am ready for racing again next weekend when LMC heads to Georgia. It is unclear as to whether or not I will double in short course and long course, but whatever I do, I want to win. And I know I can.