This one was full of rocks and pain, but still fun. The atmosphere and people were great, lots of encouragement from the other riders etc. Would have liked to do a little better than I did. The SSers who beat me are especially motivating for next race, since I was on a full squish geared bike :). This was second race of the TORC endurance series was done at Briar Chapel. TORC crews have been building trails there for about a year or so. The race course had about 4 miles of singletrack and 2 miles of doubletrack and dirt road. The singletrack has some smooth flowy stuff, but a few sections of very rocky but flat stuff. Lots of upper body work. They also included a crazy rock garden that I hiked. The rocky stuff was not a big deal (other than the giant rock garden). I had more trouble pacing on the doubletrack and dirt road. In hind sight I should have taken some "salt" tabs, but I didn't and I had minor cramps for a good part of the race. I went out a little too hard the first couple of laps, with a avg HR around 162. I backed off some, but in the end I just continued to slow HR and pace.
I jumped with the lead group from the start and stayed on the back of it. Didn't know it at the time, but it was full of heavy hitters. Backed it down about 1/3 of the way into the lap and let the leaders go. One interesting part of this course is there was longish 2-way doubletrack part, where you could see where people were ahead and behind you. Even on the first lap the leaders had a good gap as I went down the doubletrack to the creek. I cramped in this race some, more than LRRP for sure, so I would back it down. I swapped places with Jimmy Bean several times. He would get a huge gap on the doubletrack and dirt road and then I would catch him in the woods. Good fun. I fell off the last 2 laps and avg HR was slightly lower than LRRP. Brinn came out too, but bent his rear dérailleur and hanger so bad on the 2nd lap he couldn't ride it anymore. He switched to my XTC for the last few laps.
Lap Time Avg HR
1 38:17 162
2 31:36 162
3 31:45 163
4 31:59 162
5 32:27 160
6 32:48 161
7 34:06 162
8 34:01 158
9 35:24 154
10 35:03 151
Stats: 4th of 14 in division. 9th of 58 overall including teams, 61 miles, 335 mins, avg speed 10.9, avg HR 159, max HR 175, bike Anthem
Grumpy toward the end.
Rolling to the start/finish. The magic B in the background
Last lap, crusing in with Randy
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