Far Away Place

I was planning to update this thing at least once a week and so far I have been slacking. I did get pretty sick this week, but how hard is it to type out a couple paragraphs with a cold? I think it is not that hard, yet I was still lazy.

On Sunday I headed down to Hawthorn Woods with Kevin(Grey/K-murder) in hopes of speeding up my upgrade. I wanted to acquire enough points to upgrade rather than do the five race route. I am not saying that one way is better than the other, but I do like finishing well and that is a lot easier to do in the fours than threes. We left at eight in the morning and arrived an hour before Kevin needed to race. My race was even later and had arrived about four hours early for it. With registration you got a clif bar and clif gel which was awesome and since I did not bring any food with me it helped out a bit. I got a free water bottle with registration which was also cool because I constantly loose them. Kevin was rolling in the threes with a single speed which was rad. The course was not set up for a single speed at all. It had a large toboggan hill that you had to ride up then turn immediately into a steep decent then go over a barrier and either ride or run up it again. Doing this twice a lap was exhausting and since I have let my health slide since road season it was quite the task. Before Kevin's race we talked about how important it was to get out front at the beginning, since the hill is first it would need to be accomplished by the second decent of the first lap. Trying to do this later on would be much more difficult because the field would be spread out. After the second run up Kevin was in first place all the way up to the second lap where his lack of gears may have hurt him a little. I couldn't imagine putting out the effort to spin one gear like he did. He ended up rolling into third place on a single speed. I was stoked for him and his placing gave me even more motivation to do well.

After about two or three hours of sitting around watching other races it was my turn to get out there and do some damage. They staged the leaders of the series which was super annoying because they took the front line at the start. I had fallen back to second row in a field of 49 people, which was not all bad. Once we were off I started to make the jump to the front. I moved up to the top ten before we hit the hill giving me an awesome position to pass people on the climb then run up and be in front. After the climb I had crept my way up to top five, then on the decent I held it. On the run up I was fortunate enough to have Kevin running up the hill along of me screaming at me to get in front. This was the medicine I must have needed because I had gotten to the top of the hill first. On the way down and through the course I had fallen into a not to shabby third. Unfortunately, from here the race for me takes a downward spiral. After the first barrier after the hill the first place guy at the time had trouble getting into his pedals and ended up blocking the second place guy out. I saw my opportunity and got out of the saddle and put on the heat. The part of the course this happened at was technical and happens to be a weakness of mine, then adding speed made it even worse. After almost losing it on a corner I still had my first place spot and was heading towards the mud pit. Being myself and totally disregarding what Kevin had said to me about the mud pit I blasted into it planning to turn once immediately out of it. No luck, and I went off the course into a tree. While dropping the F-bomb ten to twenty times I hoped back on my bike to find myself in fifth and holding strong. Next time around, I took a corner to wide and went off the course. After being passed by three or four people I was on the bike trying to close the gap. At this time I was fed up with all of my errors and even thinking about throwing in the towel. The remaining part of the race I rode with two other guys where we traded off positions. On the last lap I found myself rounding the last turn behind the two. I quickly thought of my options and if i had enough energy to drop the hammer on the final sprint. I did and took the luxury of sprinting into seventh for a not so great placing.

I now have enough races to upgrade which i have done. I assume that everything will go smoothly and i will be racing threes one Saturday. I think I will need to start stepping it up a notch if i plan to compete with M/Wildman, Cale, and Kevin. I feel a bit intimidated, but I imagine after the first couple of races the feeling will diminish. Another scary, but real fact is in this category people make the jump to semi pro. Like I said my fitness level is not at its best, but perhaps I am already making excuses. On Saturday will come the real test during which 45 mins of hell will be rained upon thee, ending in a painful world of hurt. I am as ready as I will ever be.