Winter Park XC-2 Race Report

 

The first real mountain bike race of the 2012 Winter Park series has arrived!!! Hooray! As excited as I was, I have to admit there was quite a bit of anxiety and worry going on inside my head considering how the past couple weeks have unfolded. Ever since the dirt bike race in WY a few weeks ago, I have been battling horrible nausea and dehydration. The weather on the front range as been in the triple digits almost every day and without AC, it's been extremely rough. Needless to say, I have been on a 2 days of nausea and no eating then 1 day of feeling good kick that has repeated since Jun 17th. I have no idea how I got so lucky but it timed itself perfectly where I was able to eat breakfast and feel good before the start of Saturday's race. I pounded the Pedialyte hoping to replenish as many electrolytes as possible and told myself that if I felt like I was going to put myself in a hole, I would relax and just simply finish!

As we lined up for the start, there were a lot of familiar faces. There were also a lot of extremely fast girls that don't normally come out to these races so it was really cool to have such a strong field. My goal was to be smart about how I was feeling, consistent with my effort and focus on riding technically well in effort to stay efficient throughout the race. As always, the start straight up the fire road was tough and intense but I stayed within my HR ranges and jumped into the singletrack in 5th position where I managed to stay all day. I could see 3rd and 4th for almost the entire race but I was being cautious of not overdoing it and making sure to take in fluids on every opportunity possible. Other than a crazy over the handlebar crash on a loose rocky decent and a few dropped chains, the day went very smooth and I was extremely pleased with my place considering the caliber of girls out there and my 85%ish effort. Sunday was another crappy day and today isn't looking any better either so it might be time to get some bloodwork or get on a high dose of probiotics to destroy whatever is making me feel so crappy. Stay tuned!