Thursday, August 30, 2012

Mid-season musings

   Last weekend's race at Northstar went well--for once, I didn't really have an excuse to do horribly, so I won instead. The course was super easy with lots of pedaling; almost a relaxing experience aside from cranking till your legs explode! I probably could have pedaled more and gone faster, but with the way my season has been so far, I'll take what I can get.
A good shot from last weekend by Chris Demere
   At this point, it's getting dangerously close to the end of another bike season, and I'm already thinking ahead to next year and what to do differently. Case in point: Northstar. While I credit the place for getting me a good start in riding DH, it's feeling smaller and smaller every time I ride there. And with 8 races in the series, being there almost every weekend is starting to get old. I love to ride my bike and don't usually mind where, but growing up racing in Washington spoiled me in getting to travel around the state for races, experiencing a wide variety of venues. So with that in mind, I'm tentatively thinking about a pass to Mammoth next year instead of the 'star again, and definitely focusing on fewer races with more importance, like the Pro GRT series and/or Grand Prix, whichever I can make it to most easily. That would give me more time to train, ride for fun in other cool places, kick back on the beach, and even do some overnight backcountry rock climbs like I used to in the good old days...
   Despite its drawbacks, it has still been a good season to stay local and save money; I've been so far unsuccessful at ridding myself of the same tenacious sinus infection that's persisted for months through several courses of antibiotics, a candida cleanse, and lots of sleep. Next stop is the dentist, who may perhaps find a tooth infection (apparently a common cause of mysterious sickness). Yuck. I HATE going to the dentist, and haven't been to one in several years, go figure. If that clears things up, great, but i'll sure feel like an idiot for not going in sooner!
   More racing this weekend: Live Wire and Dogbone back to back, we'll see if I can defend my victory from last year on Live Wire, and redeem myself from a terrible race at Dogbone when my fork quit working so well.


Monday, August 6, 2012

Playing catch-up

   I guess it's been a few weeks since I wrote anything, so here we go.  2 weekends ago was the Northstar series race on Karpiel, a trail I hadn't actually ridden top to bottom yet, ever.  Practice with my friend Tasa on Friday night had all sorts of fun in store, winding up at one point doing splits over a rock with my bike on top of me, bringing at least a couple minutes of hilarity at being violated by Fabio (that rock section's name was Fabio Falls, it's a long story).  No injuries, just a lot of laughing and some puzzling at how to get out of such an awkward position.  Sunday morning pre-race practice packed a harder punch when I decided to try jumping over some roots in a more familiar part of the trail and found myself forcefully digging in the dirt with my full face helmet.  Helmet totaled, but my brain was ok; sometimes things that seem like a good idea at the time should be considered a little more carefully, luckily the rental shop had a decent lid for me to borrow the rest of the day!
  Race run went well aside from a pretty major bobble at the top of Fabio Falls, not a crash so much as another one of those awkward positions that required some thought to undo. I cleaned Vietnam (the second rock section) without any trouble and wound up in third place, not too bad for the few practice runs I as able to get.  Notice a pattern here yet? Being too darn out of shape to ride all day still, it appears as though adequate practice time is my biggest weakness, but at least it's something I can fix for next season by staying healthy enough to train all winter and into spring.
   I topped my record for practice runs this season on Boondocks, the Pro GRT course for this past weekend, coming in at around 8 or 9 total (hahaha).  My boss was cool enough to let me take time off both Thursday and Friday afternoon to get those much-needed runs before qualifying on Friday evening.  After a few moments of panic at the lift suddenly being stuck at 2 mph for half an hour, we arrived at the top of the course to find that qualifying had been pushed back by 20 minutes to accommodate this.  Phew! I qualified in 4th with a clean but safe and slow run, knowing there was plenty of room for more speed.  My goal for the race was originally not to finish dead last like at Sea Otter--yep, gotta aim high!  Going up against some pretty fast girls, all but one having gone to World Cup races this season, and one the current national champ, this seemed like a tall order with an enormous field of 5.  Even Tasa can pull off a lightning quick run seemingly out of nowhere, whereas I feel like I'm still horribly inconsistent (uhh, practice?).
   I came off the start feeling great, up until only the third corner, a loose and sandy flat turn wherein a stump jumped in front of me and caused an emergency dismount.  Crap! Untangle bike from stump, remount and attempt to clip in (darn pedals, it's never been that hard before!).  The rest of the run was an attempt to not get my butt kicked by too much, sprinting anywhere possible and actually even nailing all of my lines, not to mention successfully staying clipped in around all those duffy loose corners! Coming in at 5:13, 3 seconds slower than my clean qualifying run, I'm a little disappointed in making a mistake like that--but on the other hand, without the crash I would have been right up there with 2nd/3rd place, who were both just under 5 minutes.  So the speed is definitely there, even without that much time on the bike this summer.  It was a bittersweet day for sure, but also a great learning experience on the amount and speed of practice I need.  Yeah, I need to start going faster in practice too, because the reason I blew up in the corner was probably coming in a lot faster than usual!
   So Tasa saved me from coming in last by taking a nice Sunday stroll down the course, haha, thanks lady!  And I wound up with a little $$ for 4th place, took care of my entry fee and still some left over for food and bike parts.  Cool beans.  Got some things to work on before next season but I'm feeling positive that it's nothing too big.  Maybe if I can scrape myself together before the Tara Llanes Classic this year, I can pull off another good result in that race, but in the meantime it's time to finish out the series at Northstar, hoping one of these times I can pull it together (and not break bike parts) for a win.