Eau Claire Princeton Valley ‘Cross Race

Real nice event, just a bad day for the good guys….

Everything leading up to the race this week should have foretold a better race than what transpired.  I’d ridden my best ever highest power output 10 & 15min intervals on Tuesday and rested with easy riding a good share of the rest of the week.

Did “A” fast guy race.  Finished a disappointing 7th a couple minutes off winner Jesse Reints, & Trevor Koss who I went toe to toe with at Carson Park race.  Trevor finished 2nd staying with Jesse most of the race. 

Sliding out on one of the first corners I road blocked the back half of the race and immediately was gapped by the Matt Peterson, Jake Begley & the other lead guys.  I recovered and passed a few guys (Matt O’Meara & co.) to get back with Brian Koenomen, only to slide out again on a corner and lose contact.

Another lap or two in another guy, who name I never found out, was riding with me was working  on catching back up to Brian K.  only to tangle both us up in course tape.  Weird, somehow he tangled up in the course tape and pulled it out far enough that it got tangled in my front brake/shifters too.  So instead of passing him I was caught up and losing more time, that was the third mishap by then. 

Brian K. had begun to fade so we caught up with him eventually.  I just didn’t concentrate and stay focused well enough to hang with them and to top it off I was just feeling off.

The remainder of the race was playing yo-yo with those guys, closing the gap to under 10 seconds and then falling back.  I’d get a good lap in only to not have it for the next one.

There was a total of 11 laps in the race.  On lap 8 or 9, we passed up Nate Lillie who was riding his 2nd race of the day (workhorse of the day award goes out to him – the first race was on single speed).   

Though by this point I thought I had the cornering on this very tight course down, it wasn’t to be.  On the penultimate lap, I slide out & went down for the 5th time of the day and it allowed my rear tire to “burp” out a good share of it’s air.  The bontrager ‘cross tires were a  good choice but could have benefit from more careful handling or bigger side knobs, my Michelin Mud2’s might have been an incrementally better choice though the course was plenty dry for the most part, it was just the corner was often and very tight.

That last incident was significant enough that I wasn’t able to recover enough to make a run at catching Brian K. & the guy he was riding with in the final 2 laps.  I wanted to make sure my tire didn’t roll off completely and with how the day had gone though I didn’t give up I was ready for it to be over. 

Maybe it was too much Turkey dinner, pies and desserts at Thanksgiving, or the personal stuff of the week, but this race had my number and I didn’t have it’s.  Not exactly the tune up I was looking forward to going into Badger Cross Midwest Championships and Nationals in Madison.

Gotta just talk to coach Gordy and get back to the drawing board.  He’s real good about the stuff so if my racing legs are meant to be found he’ll come up with a way.

Was great to have a cheering section at the race with my family & one of my good friends – who all quite frankly had to freeze their butts off in the 32 degree temps and wind chill that brought it into the mid to low 20’s.  It’s a pretty darn good consolation that people you care about are there when having one of those days where the race isn’t really going your way & vastly missing expectations.  Puts things in good perspective afterwards and helps you move past the bad days.  thanks guys!

All in all, still good to be out racing.  Always great to see the  other guys like Nate Lilly & Matt O’Meara & catch up with them at a time of year well past MTB season’s end.

We’ll see how the next couple weeks go and Badger Cross.  It’s actually been nice to race this late in the season and despite some recent results I feel pretty fresh at least mentally & a lot of my training show my fitness hasn’t dropped off (that is until this race, ugh).  But I would say it sure seems to help make the winter months go by faster when you race into January and can take down time in Jan & Feb instead of trying to get in base training hours under what most people would say are the least ideal cycling conditions of the year.