Springtime and the livin's easy. Hard to believe we made it through winter, but here we are. Getting some great riding in lately: did the loop up through Gloucester last weekend with Nate and Matt. I felt surprisingly good and was able to finish strong; this a first for me this early in the season to hammer for 60 miles and not bonk. Matt felt a bit sick by the time we got back, but nothing some off-brand Mylanta couldn't cure. I continue to love the Powertap. Before I had to just kinda guess if my fitness was improving, and by how much - now I can know exactly where I stand. As long as my numbers continue to go up, it keeps my motivated to keep training.
I'm officially a Cat 1 MTBer - it took over a week, but USA Cycling finally approved my upgrade so now I can race with the big boys. Because my upgrade was still pending, and I couldn't justify driving almost 3 hours to race 8 miles in the Cat 2 race, I skipped Hopbrook and made Winding trails yesterday my first race of the season. It was a blast! One of the most fun courses I've ever raced on (can you tell I'm becoming more of a roadie!?); really fast, NO rocks, a couple steep short hills but nothing too substantial, a few good downhills, and lots of tight twisty singletrack. I actually feel like my Anthem was designed for the course; the fast handling really helped. Because they kept us at the start line for about 10 minutes before actually starting, I (along with everyone else) pretty much lost whatever warm-up I had done, so the start was pretty tough. A few guys took off with an acceleration that I simply couldn't match and were not seen from a again. About 2 min in, a guy hit a log at an angle and went down right in front of me, but I was able to skirt around with no issues. Because the turnout was so big, the only time I was really riding by myself was the fourth lap, about the last half or so. This is also where I started to feel things in the 'engine room' shutting down...I think I didn't eat quite enough. My 3rd lap was probably my fastest, and I probably lost a couple minutes running out of gas and losing the train I was on...there were wide-open sections of fire-road with a decent headwind, so believe it or not, drafting actually came into play.
I got 5th, not bad overall, and a sign my fitness is pretty much where I thought it was. I definitely finished better than I did at Hopbrook last year, where I was 11 min behind the winning time; this race, only ~4 minutes.
Next race, next week: the Massasoit Lung Opener in Taunton. I'm Looking forward to it.
