NECS #1, EFTA Glocester Grind Race Report

watching 24 (that jack bower is dreamy), this race report may be a bit disjointed...

with the main focus on the mohican 100, this weekend's race was barely on the radar, but that doesn't mean that when the gun goes off (more like, when the race director yells "GO") i didn't want to have a good one. plus i dropped $27 on the entry fee! this week i just stayed on the base training and eased it back a tad on fri/sat. not my typical taper, but better than hammering right through the race. usually on a xc race week i'll go hard on wed, easy thurs, take friday off, then cruise easy on sat. even with the minimal taper, i felt pretty decent on sat when i went for my usual day before "shake-down ride."

sunday was a perfect sunny day, temps in the mid 60's, felt a lot hotter with wheels rollin'. got to the race site early and cruised for 60mins on the road, 15-20mins of that with a good dude, mr dan walsh.

good fast start, settled-in behind the usual crew of fast dudes, legs felt fine, didn't have that extra go-go, but wasn't expecting it. thought i could just pace it out, stay steady. what i didn't expect was my inability to see the lines on the super-technical course. rocks rocks everywhere. had a hard time getting going. haven't been on the mtb too much this year, but have been out enough that there's no excuse. ended-up getting passed quite a bit on the first couple laps, took some hard falls chasing lines that just weren't there. by lap 3 i knew where the lines were, started getting in the flow. was riding real steady times, 33-35mins/lap, but as mo bruno of IF said in her race report, "wondering if I was still going forward at all or just bouncing up and down."

ended-up riding with a pack of vet II guys or maybe even masters. not sure if they were local dudes or guys who ride the whole circuit, but for the first time in the EFTA scene, wasn't thoroughly impressed with course etiquette. as one fellow would approach sport racers we were lapping he'd just yell "TRACK!" vs, "on your left." even if lapping someone give them some respect, they're probably in a lot more pain than you. yelling track means, "GET THE F OUT OF MY WAY" which just isn't cool. How 'bout, "on your left, good job, keep it up." that's sportsmanship.

on the 4th lap, about 1m from the finish there was this steep run-up of a climb. i got myself fired-up to charge it and went at it full bore in the 34-32, made it right to the top before stalling-out and falling back hard to the bottom of the climb! now i got a nice bruise on my right hip to match the road rash on my left. nice. but it's better to try and fail than not try at all.

overall, it was a good experience, opened things up, finished 6th in senior II, nothing special, but could be worse.

andy went for a monster ride with CCB instead, was tough decision to do the race vs the base miles, so am back at it hard today. squeezed in 3 hours, hopefully can get a bunch of hours this week, start setting-up the schedule for the mohican 100...

shout-out to all the folks who rocked the 12 hrs of lodi!