Cranky Monkey #3, 8/24/2008

My training plan for the 3rd race in the Cranky Monkey series ran thusly: work 12 hour days and don't train for 5 weeks, and do a ride at Gambrill the day before. It worked out better than I would have thought. Why, I don't know.

Prior to the start, race director Jim Harmon told us, "It's a really smooth course, you're gonna love it!" Maybe he hadn't ridden it, or rode it on a 5 inch trail bike, because while a good bit of it was pretty smooth, the descents beat the crap out of me with the rigid fork. The spokes were crying in pain, ping! pang! in time to my own grunts and bursts of profanity as I used what little skills I had in an attempt to keep a light grip, arms relaxed, and let the bike move beneath me as well as I could. Thank goodness for big, fat, high-volume tires and tubeless conversions that let me ride with less than 20 PSI of pressure. Slowly I'm learning to ride quickly with a rigid fork and not feel like tenderized meat afterward, and I definitely noticed an improvement this race over where I started several months ago, but my shoulders and neck were still tight and sore for two days.

Atypically, I got to the race venue an hour early, despite it being an hour and 20 minute drive; time enough that I didn't have to rush, and was even able to do a little 5 minute warm up. Not that it helped any, but I was conforming to tradition and conventional wisdom. Lined up at the start, the siren went off, and after some gravel and pavement I got on the trail about half-way back (possibly further) in the pack. As usual I didn't feel like going into oxygen debt right at the start. My legs had no snap in them anyway, and I was somewhat regretting the ride the day before, when I'd felt so fantastic, but I kept a fairly decent pace and tried not to use up too much of my reserves muscling up the steep climbs, of which there were far too many more than I remembered.

I started feeling better on the second lap.  Well enough that was able to continue passing people, some in my own class, and keep my pace up.  Well enough that my second lap was only a few seconds off the time of the first one.  As happens in many mountain bike races, after a while I was pretty much keeping myself company, occasionally passing someone.  One guy on a geared bike who should have been in the expert instead of the sport class did pass me on the second lap, but other than that the only people I saw were the ones I passed.  Uneventful, really, that second lap; but fun, and painful, and wonderful.  I somehow ended up in 4th place out of 15 for the second race in a row.  It was a good feeling, and satisfying.

Eight racers in DCMTB jerseys showed up Sunday. Tom, Mike Scardaville, Matt, and Eric battled in the expert class that's become so fast, and Tris battled back problems in sport women. Lynne crushed the rest of the expert women, as usual. If she gets any faster someone is going to sign her up for a pro team. She also finished 1st in the points series total. Other series total top finishers: Tris finished 4th in sport women, Tom Vaughn 4th in expert men 35+, and myself 4th in singlespeed. Six podium appearances Sunday. Way to go DCMTB!