ICCC Castlewood MTB Race

Finally, my kind of race! After what seems like a lot of racing on non-technical single track this summer, I had the opportunity to repeat a good showing of 2nd place at last month's Castlewood Challenge with another race in the style I prefer. That means climbing, rocks & roots, and some flowy singletrack for rest thrown in for good measure. My concern with racing the Blue Ribbon trail is that I rarely trek back there on my occasional Castlewood visits because you technically have to "trespass" through some highly eroded trail owned by the railroad to access it these days. Because of that, the race was staged from a trail about 10 minutes or so away from the park. Parking was a bit of an issue, but I shared a ride & Rich & the gang even had trucks to haul your stuff to the staging area from the remote parking that was available. After registering, Tom and I explored the flats for a bit to see what that was like. Interesting terrain - not really all that flat, but fast & flowy with some berms, short, steep hills & turns to keep you honest. I knew what awaited after the tunnel from my pre-ride a few weeks back - some nice hill climbing and more technical than the previous few races have been for sure. My pre-ride had not been very clean, so I was a little concerned. After I headed back to the start, I saw my youthful competitors, Ashley & Gabrielle, along with Celeste, a rider who is thankfully older than me, so chatted with them for a bit. Gabrielle had hurt herself on one of the downhill drops last week, so she was concerned as well. Ashley is with the KC gang, and as we were chatting, the KC guys road up to tell Ashley that after the tunnels, things were dicey. I assured her it wasn't that bad, but I could see the doubt. Ashley is the points leader in women's sport & has the top spot locked up for the points series, but she likes to win and is a super nice, but tenacious, competitor. When race line-up was called, I felt unusually calm considering the level of difficulty for this race. My thought was just to go out hard & ride my best & show the the out of town girls, Ashley & Celeste, what home-field advantage is all about. And much to my surprise, I was quickly out in front & stayed there. Gabrielle was right behind me through the start, but when we reached the hills, I expanded my lead. But...on the "flats" Gabrielle was able to get right on my tail again. I had one mechanical on the first lap that slowed me a bit - lost my chain once, but didn't let that affect me mentally & just fixed it & forgot it. First lap down, I was in the lead by a slim 3 seconds. Now, I figured out something. I race so much better in the lead than trying to play catch up! This was my kind of race, but dang-it, I was pretty sure I could not sustain the pace for 3 laps, and I knew that there were way too many flats that Gabrielle could catch me on, so I had to push myself. Second lap was the same story as the first - could pull away on the tough stuff, but Gabrielle was right on me on the flats. Had one issue on the 2nd lap - big stick got caught in my spokes & rode the first big hill hearing the sound of that stick rattling my spokes the whole way. I wanted to wait until the mandatory dismount on a sketchy section that was required by the park, so was glad to make it all the way there without that stupid stick giving me too much trouble. Crossed the line with a 4 second lead on lap 2. Now. Get this. I'm breathing hard for over an hour & those hills were long & I had worked a double shift on Friday and teaching a ding-dang group strength class in the mix, so the 3rd lap was worrying me with my sore legs and fatigue from work on Friday. Gabrielle and I jockeyed back & forth briefly, but when we hit the hills, she had to dismount & I made it up to the top. However, I know I had slowed down on this lap a bit more because I was noticing things I had not on the first two laps, like a bridge that we had to cross. I could not remember crossing a bridge & thought briefly I was lost, but kept on going and just figured I was too much in the zone on the other laps to notice. I lost my chain again on the third lap, and that was what allowed Gabrielle to catch me. She was right on my tail again & finally passed my on the flats before the finish. She was just ahead of me when we crossed the finish line. I definitely made Gabrielle suffer for that win - she put it all out there on the line. I could not push the sprint through the last grassy section and I lost by 8 seconds. My plan worked in that the home girls took it to the out of towners. We smoked them, but I lost the best race of my life. No mechanicals would have made the difference, but my attitude was excellent and I beat the mental demons of letting little things like chains and sticks bother you during a race. It was awesome!