Mt. Kato

Mountain bike racing is definitely more interesting when your aren't as fit. Though I'm not saying it's better. I know how fast I have to go and how fast I want to go and then there is reality. A few years ago there is no way I would have finished that race yesterday. I blew on the second lap leading up the first climb. Boom. Done. Brendan and Jesse passed me and I started gulping water in hopes of recovery. I dropped my only bottle so I had to stop, backtrack and pick it up. Scotty KJ, Jack Hinkens and Michael McBunrey passed me. I struggled to get back to them. I was starting to recover and popped again on a middle climb. Paul Hanson caught up to me. I started rolling again about then and had a lap and half of fast racing. I worked my way all the way up to third and was 40 seconds back on Jesse heading into the 4th lap. I went hard for a half lap, started to come unwound and didn't try too hard to pass lapped comps. Then Jack passed me, then Scott and Luke and Paul and Devin and Michael. This is the point where I recovered enough to get on the wheels, wait until the last climb and attack back to 7th. So the race was interesting in that I was passing and being passed every lap. It was fun to be racing head to head with people, but really it would have been better to go off the front - obviously. It's been a long long time since I was good at MN style mountain bike races. I guess I'd better keep training.