We left friday with bikes in tow to do the Estrella Mountain Reserve Mountain Bike Race. My wife raced the sport class, I did the beginner men's, my 8 year old did the under 12, and our 5 year old did the kids race. Typical, everybody won a medal except for me (I'll include my excuse in a minute).
My wife did awesome. This was her first race in the Sport class and she kicked butt. She even took some time to help out a fallen rider and still managed to take second place. This a woman who really hasn't trained very seriously this year and still ends up taking a podium spot. While I train my butt off and have to settle with the top 1/3 of my class.
Ok, here's my excuse. Each class of riders are designated by a certain number written on our legs. He's flying through the group at the starting line asking each rider their age and assigning (and writing) their corresponding class number on their legs. He asked me my age (37) and proceeded to write a "3) on my leg. So this means I leave with the other 3's. After the 1's and 2's started he said (to the 3's), "ok you guys should be the 40-49 age group". So I quickly thought "oh crap, I should have been a 2. So I took off like a bat out of he## about 50 yards behind the slowest group of 2's. I could see the lead group about 100 yards ahead. About 25 yards in, the track was already single track which made it harder to pass the slower riders. My heart rate was 174 by the first half mile. My legs were already on fire but I just kept plowing through the rocks and sand trying to pass one rider at a time. Remember, I am not a mtn biker and I was quickly realizing why. The track which is probably fairly normal for most mnt bikers, was absolutely brutal to me. Very rocky, and when it wasn't rocky it was 6 inch deep sand which made my legs burn even more. To make it even more pleasurable (NOT!!), the first 6 miles was all climbing. And when I say climbing, I mean climbing. If you sat too far back on your seat, you would definitely go over backwards. It was a mixture of trying to keep your front wheel down while at the same time keeping your butt back so as to not lose any traction. The backside was a blast. Downhill Baby!!! Still very rocky which was a beating, but at least gravity was helping pull me towards the finish line. I ending up finishing 8 out of 24. I was disappointed but what the heck, it was my first time out and hopefully over time I'll get better. We're not able to really train on mtn bikes right now. The forest is still snow covered and where there's not snow there is tons of mud.
It was really a great weekend. I'm super proud of my wife and boys. Everyone gave it 100% and had a good time doing it. Here's some pictures while at the races.
Here's our 5 year old at the start of his race.
My wife trying to make me feel better
1 comment:
Congratulations to the clan! Sounds like a family that likes to pedal mash together, what a blessing!
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