Race #2: Camp Tesomas, Rhinelander.

Preface: I did 40 miles on the road bike Friday with our favorite customers and prerode the racecourse Saturday with Gehling.

Race #2 of WORS: Camp Tesomas, Rhinelander.
2x11 mile laps.
3 water stations, one hand-up from Bitches, 3 Accel Gels.
Bike Setup: Fisher Procaliber, stock. Fox RP23 Propedal setting 1, factory setup up front, 4 clicks from in on rebound and light on the propedal.
30PSI in the tires.

Rhinelander goes like this: Lots of wide open dirt roads, lots of wide open double track, and then some brutal singletrack, some double track, more brutal singletrack, dirt roads. 11 miles.

I had a shitty start position, and got caught behind some slow guys for the first few corners, so I was chasing from the gun. I caught what I thought was the lead group just before the first doubletrack, and hopped on.

The real lead group were the guys who were fast in both the open stuff and the technical stuff. The group I was behind was only fast in the open stuff. So I had to chill.

Then I started racing smarter, and more aggressively. I'd pass any chance I got in the singletrack. It didn't matter if I felt good or not; if the guy (or lady) ahead of me wasn't ripping my legs off, I went for his.

Toward the end of the first lap I got to the front of these singletrack slow-pokes, and got a gap before the doubletrack. After pushing hard to get the gap I looked back and saw nobody in sight, but knew they'd be coming for me. There was also nobody ahead of me. I knew I hadn't caught Brian Braun yet, so I found myself in no-man's land: no visible carrot to chase, and just my own legs as a pacer.

So I grabbed the big ring, tucked, spun and breathed. I was cookin on the road as I went through the lap and actually felt pretty well recovered from getting the gap. Right before diving in to the doubletrack, three guys with huge legs came powering through and I hopped on to draft for the last little open section. I felt awesome when we hit the technical stuff, and when things got really gnarly, they started splitting up. I passed the first guy when the started to drop, and caught the second on a small climb.

(side note: Gehling commented during the preride that my climbing was poppy, but I didn't do so hot a job maintaining it over the top, so if I was going to attack and try to gap people, I'd better go early on climbs.)

So that's what I did to guy #2, and I blew him out of the water. At the top of the climb it opened up a bit, so I set in behind hammerhorse #3 and let him pull me around. I told him we had dropped his homies and he should punch it. He pulled me up to the next group of people and I came around him just before the last nasty singletrack section.

I didn't feel so hot during this race. My legs and lungs were taxed earlier than normal and I haven't been training as much as I'd like between Iola and now. However, I was racing so much more intelligently than I did at Iola that I still did pretty well.

On the final open sections I just drilled it and buried myself, passing at least 10 more riders. I got nipped right at the finish line, but I still felt like I raced with my brain.

4th in my age group, 14th of 78 finishers in Comp. Today marks the first of my goal of 5 top 5 finishes. I made a big improvement over Iola, not just in my placing, but also in how in what Martin Whitely calls "race craft." I was smart, I was aggressive, and I knew when I could recover and when I had to push.

I now have a month off before my next XC race, which is one of my primary goal races for the season. It's time to put on some serious miles.