12 Mile #2

Round 2 of the Liberty! 12Mile series went down last night, under great weather and on some perfect singletrack.

Took this one on with my cross bike, as I will be using it for the L-L this Sunday. Figured if I could keep up on a true MTB course, the L-L would be a breeze, as its got more gravel and pavement than anything.

So before the race I did a lap of the course, knee was driving me nuts and slowing me down a lot, but other than that my bike was working great, and I was riding well.

Got to the start with lots of time, should have kept riding but instead I stood around and shot the shit for 1/2hr. The race starts with 100ish meter run, which I lead after jumping the gun a little I will admit. Thought I blew a hip flexor along the way, but it never seemed to bother me on the bike. I had my bike laying in the front row before the start, but I guess a bunch of people thought it would be fine to add another row on top, making it very difficult for me to find mine. No biggie, grabbed it, hopped over some bikes, then I was off and up with the leaders in no-time.

On the starting gravel, I wasn't feeling too strong, just angry legs from standing around to long before the start I think. So no attacks from me, just chilled near the front.

I took a poor line on the turn to go under the bridge, and my lead-out-man Justin gapped me a bit, so I throttled it to get on his wheel (also on a cx bike) as the trail turned to singletrack. At that moment things were looking great for team Liberty! to take it in a thrilling bunch kick. Then.....disaster struck! well not really, but I did slide out on the hard dusty trail, gracefully removing myself from the trail on my belly. Crash would have been nothing, if my chain woulda stayed on. Fixing that lost me a ton of spots as everyone was still tight together that early on.

When I got going, I made passes everywhere could, without being aggressive. This course is very tough to pass on, and the traffic was holding me up a ton. On the "Santa Hat" trail I managed to blow a bunch of air out my front tire by not clearing a drainage ditch. Didn't go flat but I had to stop and shoot some co2 in there and give up a few spots again. This was the first issue I had with my new Stan's CX set-up. But, I did hit that knuckle really hard, hard enough to turn my bars down a few degrees. And believe me, my bars were not loose at all. I also had very low pressure in there, 28 maybe, so there wasn't much holding the bead in.

So after getting that shit show of a start over with, everything went flawlessly. I felt really strong, but was forced to slow down in traffic a few times. Felt awesome on the twisty trails, making my way into 3rd by the end, about 1 min down from J.C. and a bit more to Etzl who killed it once again. Justin flatted out, and will have to inject some Stan's in his tubular before the L-L. Bummer for him cause he seemed super strong at the start. Congrats to Megan for crushing the woman's race!

As soon as the adrenalin from the race wore off (likely the Advil too) me knee started to hurt again. Its a weird injury, the harder I go the less it hurts. Today I have an appointment to get some electrical current therapy on it, that's supposed to help it heal, and mask the pain. The appointment is with Kyle-from Liberty!'s wife, who is a chiropractor. She is also going to fix my back, leading to a pain free L-L and road nationals.

The knee injury reduced my training volume a fair bit, so I'm quite rested right now. Maybe could have pushed my fitness a little more, but being fresh is just as important, and I think I can have a great ride at Nationals.

See ya at the L-L!