Can’t always come in 1st

 

I raced today in the first race of the OC Race Series I’ve been doing for 3 years now. It was one of the most exciting races ever but I’ll tell you now, I did not win. Sometimes just doing our best is all we can do. If you’re interested in the race report read on…

So that race started with 8 guys in my category. The race consisted of 15 miles and about 1800 feet of climbing. This is a mountain bike cross country race for those new to my blog. The course consisted of a 10 or so minute flat ride out to the race loop I would be doing 2 loops of.  Each loop consisted of a 600 foot, 1 mile climb, very steep, some ridgeline rollers followed by a technical downhill singletrack with a big rock garden in the middle of it, then a flat single track ride back to the finish of the loop.

So I knew one of the guys that came out and knew he was faster then me. His name is Paul. He beat me by 8 minutes in a longer race last year so I knew I need to play it right to win. We rolled out average pace. On the flat I didn’t want to lead because everyone was just drafting behind me. So we played cat and mouse and finally go to the big climb. He pulled away on the 11 minute climb by about 30 seconds.  On the ridgeline I could still see him and I knew I was a better technical downhiller and could maybe catch him. I got the the downhill and bombed it. I saw him ahead and 3 other riders in the rock garden. There is the safe slower right side line and the faster straight thru the rocks left hand line. I bombed the rock garden and past all 4 of them. At the bottom I could not see him so I just hammered on the single track back to the start of the second loop. I still could not see him as I started the climb. About 2/3rds the way up I saw him coming up. He got on my wheel and stayed there until the ridgeline and I bombed the technical part of the course again and left him behind by probably a minute. I made the turn at the bottom for the 8 minute ride out to the finish. I kept looking back but did not see him.

A couple minutes later I saw a pack of expert riders (fast guys) coming up, I jumped on their wheel and hung with them for a minute or so then backed off. Paul was there at the back. He used them to pull himself back up to me. We played cat and mouse all the way to the finish. The last hundred yards I sprinted for the finish and had him but there was a technical left hand thru a wash 20 yrds before the finish.  He cut the inside and I had to back off or crash.  He took my at the finish by 2 seconds!

Was I a little bummed?  Yes.  But I rode hard and set 26 PR’s on a course I ride a lot.  There will be other races.  I realize I am lucky to be able to do this 10 years after a cancer diagnosis.  Many others are not so lucky.