March 19th CCCX#3 Race Report:  Better late than never.

 

So my title applies to both the tardiness of the report and the description of how my race went.  I was so excited for the first Fox Cup race when I woke up, like a little kid.  I spent 3 hours or so cleaning my bike and putting on my new Maxxis High Roller UST 2.1 on Saturday.  I was really fired up for Sunday morning.

 

Rolled up to the parking lot, right in front of Isaias and MO at about 9:30ish and saw a handful of familiar TWW faces.  After I set my trainer up and finished stretching, I put my heart rate monitor on and hopped on my bike.  Wait a minute, crap, my heart rate monitor isn't working.  Looks like the battery went dead.  Oh well, can't let that get me down. 

 

After about 35 minutes on the trainer, I got off and rode around a little, heckling Loren each time I saw him.  So off to the starting line I go, but no Loren.  We were getting ready to go in couple of minutes, and then I saw him making his way up to the front of the line.  The whistle goes off and Loren is out in the front 5, and I am around tenth, but the pack is staying together so I didn't worry about it.  Once we hit the large patch of sand before the paved downhill, the leaders started to take off a little.  I decided to make my way around the riders in front of me and made a break on the left.  Unfortunately, another guy in front of me had the same idea and ran in to me.  I ended up crashing in the sand and tweaked my handlebars.  After getting up and straightening them out, I must have been in about 15th. 

 

Back on the bike, and my legs were just feeling wore out from riding during the week.  I ended up catching a couple guys, but also got passed a lot by the 35-44 group.  I kept pushing hard, but it just wasn't there Sunday.  Oh well, I raced my raced and didn't do as well as the first two races.  11 out of 21, over 8 minutes behind the leader and 4 minutes or so behind Loren.  Hopefully I can make it out to the race this Sunday to redeem myself, but we'll see.  Too bad Loren and I won't be in the same class at the SOC, all of the smack talk was fun, even if I did get crushed.  I guess I will just have to save it for the Wednesday night rides.

 

The highlight of my day was definitely the post race festivities.  It was fun having a good number of people just hanging out and sipping on the Big Sky brews while cheering the experts on.  Next time we will have to get more pictures of people hanging out under the canopy sipping on recovery drinks, having a good time.

 

Matt

11/19 Sport 34 and under

1:32:04