Coming along nicely

This past Sunday was my second race of the year and the third race in the Singletrack Cycles Westside Mountain Bike Series. It was held on the trails at King County’s Soaring Eagle Park near Sammamish. Having last raced nearly a month ago, I was hoping to see a little improvement in my riding and my results just to let me know my early season training is progressing as it should. While this is event was still “just for fun” in my mind and having no real expectations for it, I decided I needed to approach it a little more seriously to test my early season fitness appropriately. The race started up a gradual climb for maybe a ¼ mile before entering the singletrack that made up nearly all of the course. Another feature of this opening stretch was a fairly significant muddy section over the upper half that tried to slow you down just when you were fighting for position to enter the singletrack.


I charged up the hill with the rest of the field, trying to hold my position through the sticky mud and be as far up as I could entering the singletrack. I certainly went out harder than I had at the first race of the season. I was moderately successful and entered the singletrack approximately mid-pack. This course was far less technical than the Dash Point course had been and really had only a few spots that were really muddy or rooty. I tried to push as hard as I could throughout the race, but kept developing bouts of nausea. Whether it was from effort or too big a breakfast, I’m not sure. I’d ease my pace a bit and then begin to feel better.

For two and a half of the three laps, I felt pretty good, not great, but good enough for this point in the season. For that last half lap though, I really began to feel the effort and lost any sense of smoothness or flow on the trails. All my turn ins were late and I began to miss my lines. I made my way through it though and ended up 14th in the Sport 40-49 field. Definitely an improvement over a month earlier as was the gap to the leader. All in all, the training seems to be progressing right on schedule with my first road race less than two weeks away now and I’m excited for my “real” racing to begin.