State Games

I think it's safe to say that every mountain bike racer is a masochist to some degree and that the level of pain increases proportionally with speed. In training, most people eventually hit a pain threshold and their ability plateaus. It takes a lot of will power to push past that and get faster. 

For this year's State Game's Race, relocated to the Ridgeland Trails from Butt's Park, my strategy was different than usual. This was my first XC Cat 1 race, so I decided to stay back at first to see how things played out. I was intentionally last (5th) into the woods. As the top two guys rode away, I quickly realized the rest of us were competing for third. Halfway through the first lap, I moved to fourth, then third in the second lap when the guy in front of me stopped to put air in his tire. 

The course started and ended with a really fast, open downhill section - maybe the only single track where I've used the top gear on my bike. I got near horizontal in the berms at the bottom. I was flying. I knew the top two guys were incredibly fast, but I was at least going to try to catch them. 

In the third and fourth laps I burped my front tire three times and had to really be careful during the last mile or so running on about 10 psi. It was in these laps that I passed the most people, mostly Cat 3's I assume. By this time they were pretty spaced out, and every rider I passed was just a little bit faster than the last. 

I finished in third place, 7 minutes behind first. That's a big gap! Still, my confidence is boosted now. In the next race, I aim to be second into the woods and hang on as long as I can.