St. Joe

This past weekend saw us back at the sight of last year's season opening bog fest, St. Joe state park. Having sucked my will to live the previous year, I was hoping for a bit of redemption on a course that had a lot of potential in the absence of the sponge like conditions from last year. For 2009, we were treated to soaring temperatures and humidity for more of a blast furnace experience than the energy sucking moisture that last year's edition brought. However, I felt I had some decent legs and had been riding well lately, so expectations were higher than normal.

Pirtle showed up for his annual reminder to everyone in town of his impenetrable superiority and as such, the start was ballistic. I missed my pedal for a couple strokes and slotted in around seventh place in line. Once again, the heads of state moved off the front immediately and a chase of four established with Wes pulling Scooter, myself and Drew. A couple miles in, I came around Scooter and sat on Wes. I was feeling really good and comfortable as we slowly broke off on our own as elder statesman John Matthews moved through on his way to a win in the 35+ expert class. After he passed, I moved back behind Wes until a brief split in the trail where I decided to move ahead. I tried to tap a high, but somewhat conservative rhythm up the long exposed pressure cooker climb before taking the descent as fast as possible. At the end of the lap, I had around twenty seconds on Wes and was sitting in fourth place feeling stronger than I ever have in a mountain bike race.

Unfortunately, a mile into my second lap, the oppressive heat brought forth a throbbing, disorientating headache and I began to fall apart. Eventually, after being passed by Wes, I pulled over and stood next to my bike trying to get it togther. I felt horrible and began slowly walking toward the bike path that would take me back to the car and out of the race. Somehow, the thought of actually quitting and having to tell people I quit because the race was too hard got to me and I decided to get back on my bike and try to finish out the lap so I would avoid the dreaded DNF. I still felt like shit but soft pedalled along until about halfway through the lap when I started to come around. I was picking up speed and feeling a bit more human when, as I cornered through some loose rock, I burped a tire. It was about three miles from the finish, so I thought I could ride the 7 psi in and call it a day. I babied the corners and the dips until Christopher caught me and I went down through the next corner. This removed the rest of the air from my tire so I got up, fixed it, got passed by Hafner, remounted and immediately caught a large stick in my rear triangle which catapulted me down a very steep hill. Not my day.

Eventually, I finished seventh. Not exactly what I'd hoped for, but I learned some things and will certainly be better prepared for the heat next time. Hopefully, I can avoid the meltdown and hopefully take advantage of what I think is some pretty decent fitness hanging around somewhere in my body. We'll see what Indiana brings in a couple weeks.