Spring time. You gotta love it when the trees start to turn green, the days get warmer and the sun graces us with her presence a little later in the day. I hate rain on the weekends, it can rain all freakin’ day on Monday and I’d love it. But please leave the weekends alone!
Dating back to the weekend of 4/29, I spent Saturday and Sunday on the trainer in tPods basement watching L.A. rip the legs off of the opposition at the ’05 Tour because it rained all weekend, 24 / 7. I did some LT’s on Saturday and my legs felt incredible. Such a waste, I would have had a great race with legs feelin’ that good. Monday was the usual hour of active recovery followed by some easy weights and the usual bs’n with my gym rat and tri-geek buddies. Did the TNWC on Tuesday, flatted about 2 minutes into ride. JJ, Jeremy, Logan and Roller Blade were kind enough to wait for me. It took me the better part of 20 minutes to change the damn thing, felt like a moron. Thanks for waiting for me guys, we got a better workout in with our small group than we would have with the peleton. Wednesday, tPod and I beat the crap out of each other for 3 hours… It was more like tPod beatin’ the crap out of me. Thursday I hit the SC for some dirty goodness for a couple of hours. Legs felt pretty lousy so I took it kind of easy. Friday was a 3 hour base ride with the iPod. Saturday was an easy 2 hour recovery ride at the SC with the Phantom.
Woke up Sunday morning and felt pretty good. I can usually tell how the legs are going to feel when I walk down the stairs in the morning. I made it down the stairs without fallin’ on my arse, so they must have feelin’ good. I threw down some coffee and a couple of boiled eggs, grabbed a box of cereal, hopped in the car and hit the road for Camp Ingawanis up by Waverly. On the way up an interesting string if events occurred. I’m cruising up I-35, goin’ about 75, up the road in the opposite lane, Smokey had some knucklehead pulled over for something. I looked in the rear view and saw this Lincoln ‘coffin on wheels’ Towncar flyin’ up the road. As it passed me, were passing by Smokey. The Lincoln is doin’ at least 90, I took a look inside and there were two old ladies that looked no younger than 90. Ya see I know this because one of ‘em had that pink colored old lady hair. They were chattin’ it up big time, totally oblivious to everything around them. Too damn funny. About five minutes later I come up on this flatbed hauling this pile of twisted metal that sort of resembled a car, I think the flattened tires kind of gave it away. As I passed by I took a look into the drivers window… yep, it’s a redneck alright. When I finished looking at the guy like he was a zoo exhibit, I turned my attention forward. Just as I Looked up the road, I saw a chicken or something run out in front of me.. Bam!!! The stupid thing hit my front bumper, flew up and hit my windshield and left most is brains all over my window. Carma… I guess that was payback for laughing at the redneck.
I made it to Ingawanis, unloaded my stead, got registered and did some bs’n with Buchanandale and some of my greasy mtb bro’s. As I was getting suited up, my Mom walked up with a pretty po’d look on her face. She freakin’ flatted again and I still hadn’t taught her how to fix a flat. I could tell that she was on the brink of either disowning me and saying to hell with this mountain biking thing. Thankfully neither happened and all is good.
I went out to recon the parcours and I wasn’t at all surprised at how sweet the course was. This place rivals Seven Oaks as one of the best courses in the state. While I was rollin’ around the start area I took note of who showed. No Eppen, too bad because my legs felt phenomenal during the recon. Cully and WWJ were there so the competition was still going to be good.
The race started, I blasted up the hill and into the singletrack in first. About five minutes in, I shot passed a corner. Cully and WWJ yelled at me and told that I missed the turn. I got myself turned around and ended up in 6th by the time I got back on course. I caught up to Bassonova and he slowed to let me by. Thanks bro. I caught up to Hairy and he let me by also, thanks dude. I got to the second climb on the course, dumped the clutch and caught up to the leading trio of Cully sitting in 1st, followed by WWJ and Nate. I rode behind Nate for a while, man that dude is squirrely. He was sliding around corners, bouncing off trees. He hit one tree and took about a foot long chunk of bark off of it. We hit the grassy field and just as I was about to pass, Nate overlapped wheels with WWJ and went down. I locked up both brakes and barely avoided goin’ down with him. It kind of ticked me off, and when I got around wreckage I punched it. I passed by WWJ and Cully and led the way into the rock garden. I was somewhat cross eyed going into the garden and dabbed. I got through the garden and gradually began to pull away from Cully.
Leading the way into the singletrack.
As the race progressed, my lead grew, though I had no idea how big of a lead that I had. My legs felt great, I felt like I had a ton of power so I really kept the hammer down. I felt a little like a pud for dabbing in the rock garden on the first lap, but I redeemed myself by riding through it without too much trouble on every lap thereafter. My best run through it was caught on video by enduro stud Kerkove. I’m the first cat goin’ through it in the video.
Cruisin' down a hill.
On the last lap my legs were starting to get a little tired. It was a long race and I figured that I better turn it down a little so that I didn’t make a mistake that could cost me the W.
Near the end of the last lap I caught up to Bassonova and he looked like he was in his own little purgatory of hell. I’m pretty sure he had no idea where he was at the time. He’d been sick for the past week or so and was payin’ for it. Before the race I dumped some of my cereal on his lap while he was trying to back his car into me. I kind of made a mess in his car so when he got his car parked he ran over and proceeded to fart in the ‘NO FART ZONE’. For those of you who don’t know what the ‘NO FART ZONE’ is, it’s the interior of my Jeep. I don’t even fart in the ‘NO FART ZONE’. I suppose I kind of deserved it, so I let it go.
The race from WWJ's vantage point.
Bagging my 3rd win of the season.
I ended up winning the race in a time of 2:18:33. Cully finished in 2nd a little over 8 minutes back. Nate came in 3rd about 2 minutes behind Cully followed by WWJ in 2:29:50. Andy Lueck rounded out the top 5 in 2:36:40. This was probably the best that I’ve felt for a race thus far this season, the form is coming along nicely. I’m off to an incredible start this season and have every reason to believe that I’m only going to get faster.
Next up is my first foray into marathon racing with the first race of the Psycowpath marathon series. It’ll be a four hour timed suffer fest over at Platte River State Park. Word on the street is that Gary Fisher pro Cameron Chambers will be there. Lookin’ forward to seeing how I might stack up against him. Should be a painfully good time!
Thanks for reading,
Cosmo
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