6 Hours of Warrior Creek

I kicked off the 2010 race season with the 6 hours of Warrior Creek. Yes this is an endurance mountain bike race. I have decided to take a slightly different approach for 2010, compared to 2009. I found during cross season, that I need to improve on my bike handling skills. While I would rate my bike handling skills as above average, I still have room to improve. So I decided to do a bunch of mountain bike races this year.

6 hours of Warrior Creek was sort of a last minute addition to my schedule. My first big race I had planned was Cohutta 100, which is coming up in 3 weeks. Back when I registered, I hardly had any hours on the bike. Since a bunch of people I knew were going, I thought it would be a good race to get the endurance legs (and ass) into shape.

Friday morning I headed over to Jackson to meet up with Jon and Justin. We packed up Justin's truck and headed down to Wilkesboro, NC. The drive was 5 hours. We had gotten a camp site, set up camp, and headed out to pre-ride the course. It was blazing hot on Friday, to the point where you were just drenched in your sweat just standing there. The ride out to the course was longer than we thought and luckily we did it the day before, not the day of. We hit the trail and only pre-rode the first two miles. Our other friends Joe and Thad had already ridden the course earlier in the day and said it was pretty much the same throughout the whole course. So instead of riding the whole thing, we decided we had enough and to not sweat to death, headed back to the campsite.

After we had gotten cleaned up, we headed out to dinner with Joe, Joe's son, Thad, and one other person. After dinner, we headed back to the campsite and tried to start a fire. The firewood we had purchased was fresh and didn't burn well.

The next morning we got packed up and ready to head to the race. One of our neighbor campers needed a ride to the race since her husband had already gone off to get coveted pit space. We totally lucked out as we got primo pit space in the pit loop.

Now finally to the race. I managed to squeeze myself into the third row, but it really didn't help me too much. I had no warm up and I just couldn't muscle up the strength to stay in the front group. Since I haven't been  practicing my mass start CX starts, I fumbled with my pedals a bit and got gapped out at the start.

My first lap was pretty fast. Lots of people on the course, lots of bottle necks (including maybe me), it was just crazy. I crashed once and twenty people passed me. Suck! I definitely felt the training in the legs as they didn't feel very fresh. Now I finally made it to the finish and I quickly refilled my camelbak, ate some food and headed back onto the course. Laps 2 and 3 were quite horrible. I progressively felt worse and many times I thought about quitting. Thad had passed me on the third lap and soon after Jon. After I finished my third lap, I seriously considered quitting. At that time, Joe came in and left so I figured I couldn't let my whole party finish ahead of me so I went out for another lap.

Now I didn't expect to finish within the last lap time cut on my fourth lap, so I figured I would just go out and ride it. I experimented with my food a little and started eating GUs on mile 4 and 8. Before, I was just waiting till I completed the lap to eat. This was the ticket. By just popping GUs every 4 miles, I was able to keep my energy topped off. I felt better than I did on the previous 3 laps. Now I came into the finish and thought I was done. I glanced at my watch and had made the time cut. Shoot! I had to do another lap.

I rolled back to the car and thought about just quitting. I had my mind set the whole 4th lap that I was done. However Thad and Justin, who had packed it up, guilted me into going out again. So off I went for my 5th and final lap. I followed the same eating routine and felt good till the last 2 miles where I started to feel my legs cramping. I thought to myself not now and pushed on. At one point, I passed a slower rider, only to pull off the trail soon after as my legs locked up (and I passed him again later)

I finished 33rd out of 104 Open Solo Men. Not too bad. Afterwards there was a big after race party. Another night at the campsite and we headed back Sunday morning. Waking up sunday was pretty rough. Every part of my body is sore.

This week, I will do my first road race at Hueston Woods. I will see how the legs will fair in the Cat1/2/3 race.