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| Photo by Jamie Clifton |
Wednesday evening was the third installment of MVMBA’s FastLaps series held at MoMBA, and the final race of the Spring season. The trail was absolutely perfect, dry and fast, but with water still in the creek crossings and the corners just wet enough to give amazing grip.
Contrary to the previous two weeks, I went out with basically no strategy at all. It being the last race of the Spring, and so my last chance to hit my goal of a sub-50-minute lap, I decided to just go hard right from the start, hammer every chance I got, and see how long I could keep that up. I was hoping that would be 50 minutes!
The good weather and awesome trail conditions brought back some of the faster competition we saw in the first round, and right from the start, the lead group left me spinning in the field. I was a little surprised by that, given my strong start last week, and I didn’t feel like I was going any slower. Besides, I figured some of the lead group would drop off later, and so much the better for me to pick them off one by one.
The first two trails went well. I attacked whenever I could, tried to flow the corners and pick good lines, and kept my head and eyes up. I kept waiting for a straggler to come back to me, and finally one did, at the end of Twisted. I took that as motivation and hammered forward, but nobody else came into view. But I pressed anyway, telling myself that they’d come eventually, and I just had to keep working at 100% to get them.
As hard as I was riding, I wasn’t quite as smooth as usual. My line choices were mostly okay, but I was making a few mistakes, due partially to the increased effort, and partially to the slightly altered handling from my new stem. That said, I was mostly covering up my mistakes with aggression, and that served me well in Hawk’s Lair. A couple of derailleur malfunctions contributed to hurried and non-optimal lines, which normally result in me either stopping, or falling off, or both. But I was hitting everything so hard that I ended up having just enough momentum to make it through somewhat cleanly. Not pretty, but a decided improvement over last week.
I kept attacking and keeping the pace up, trying hard to use momentum where I could, aggression where I couldn’t, and fitness to back up both. I tried to pay a lot of attention to my breathing, and if it started to get too relaxed, I’d find a way to ratchet up the pace a bit. Try as I might, though, the series of long, gradual climbs out of Creekside sapped me, and I found myself higher on the cassette than I wanted to be, and spinning up rises I should’ve blasted though. I guess my fitness level just isn’t quite there yet.
I never did catch anyone else in my class, but nor was I caught and passed by anyone, unlike in weeks past. Despite my worst placement so far (8th of 12), I did manage to go 2 full minutes faster than ever before. The trouble with fast conditions is that they make just about everybody go faster! The real heartbreak was that I missed my goal by six seconds. I finished in 50:06.3. There are a lot of positives I’m taking away from this week, but now I have unfinished business, come the XC Classic this fall.