This & That & Chatter

It's been a good run. All year and the last week. For the year 7th overall expert/pros. Not bad. Duncan with no training came into form mid season and kept getting faster. He's on the overall podium this year. He's easily a top sport guy, that was me in 2005. So maybe I have a few years before he catches me? So what if he's taller now! My Dad and Amy also had good MTB bike seasons. Chequamegon included. By the way Jack has a video up of Cheq40. My Dad just had knee surgery to remove floating peices, it will be interesting to see his recovery potential.

TUESDAY night cx races have been fun. Looking forward to more. The single speed effort and nature of CX is by far the most painful race style. Oh the 100 mile races hurt plenty too. But between deep muscle ache of endurance or lung searing non-stop pain, it's the latter cx that hurts more. CX is like the first buck hill of the year but non-stop effort. At my age it's use it or loose it. I'll suffer.

FRIDAY was the second Hillside night race. Not many showed up. It's a good time. Although I had a good gap and won by 5 minutes, It was a fun workout. I coulldn't help but keep a good pace. 1.5hrs for 6 sections (2.5 laps). Bonfire afterward had me leaving the lot close to midnight.

SATURDAY was the single speed state race. Last year I opted out of ss. I decided my recent efforts have been solid. One race is enough so it was the SS race. This year was my 4th year and 4th time on SS podium. Brendan showed and scored the "W" I was the first looser again a few minutes back. I led out the prolouge at moderate pace then amped it up until hurting (Hillside the night before lingering). Brendan as before just hung out on my wing until I say where are ya, then he rides away. I couldn't hang with his 44x16 26'er gear long, even with 36x17 29'er. This year the prolouge ended with a few surprise steep hill climbs!! The first climb I oped to jump off half way and run 50ft instead of tweak it up. It put me into third place but i was able to regain 2nd before the woods. Once in the woods we all relaxed and yammerred out words like whew, owe, yeah! The start hurt! Brendan was already gone going solo. Once recovered I separated from the next competitors and rode solo. I paced pretty hard through the twisty to ensure a good gap. The rest of the race was stress free and simply fun pace. I was 30 seconds then 1 minute then ended a few minutes back. 3rd place was about that behind me the whole race too. It's a fast course so each 1 minute back is like 2 minutes anywhere else. Good training starts again! Motivated.