Marathon Champs

Another victory! Yee Ha!

Todays race went perfectly for me. Aside from going off course for 5ish minutes with Tyson, and being joined buy by Tim and a couple others on the way back to the vandalized arrow turn, there were no issues. About 5 riders got ahead of us at this point, but myself and Tyson pulled ahead again and caught them quickly. We worked together well, with him pushing me a bit on the singletrack, and me pushing him a bit on the doubletrack. Unfortunately for him, his lower gears were not working, so he was forced to grind up all the climbs, and it was hurting him. He admitted to being nearly cracked just after the last feed zone, so I upped the pace there, and held it till the end. I did loose my gap at another point later on when I arrived at a split in the doubletrack with no arrows in sight. The arrows just prior were a different color, and I did not want to ride further off track, so I rode back up a long climb, then waited for a bit till the train of riders came, and told them what was up. We determined that down the hill was the only way to go, and I checked out where the left turn went. I rode up a hill, them bam! an arrow appeared and I was back on track. The others got going again, but I quickly gapped them, feeling quite strong. I avoided any major cramps, and was able to ride every climb (excluding the one near the start that everyone ran).

My plan going in to this race was to start slowish, and save a lot for the last 20km where I wanted to really tear some legs off. I felt great at the start though, so I used my strength, stuck with Tyson, and just waited to see what would happen. Having a good history with these types of races really boosts my confidence, so the mental battle is easy to win.

Well I think Benno is in trouble at Paul's. The 100km battle is coming soon!

As long as I don't do anything stupid this week, like stay up all night, or get wasted, I should have the same form next weekend. My only training ride this week will be the power test Wednesday morning, and maybe 5hrs of fun cross rides to fill in the rest of the week.