Back at Bloomer Park, so that means back to some old school twisty, technical, out of the saddle mountain bike racing. Bloomer has typically been a good place for me to race despite the terrain not catering to my strengths on the bike. So here we were again. I have not been feeling the racing and training bug as of late, so I was happy to learn that the course was going to be rerouted and shortened a bit. Anything to try and stoke the fire again.
The Class was a bit smaller than normal, but the usually suspects were there. Brad, Jon, Roger, Aryn, Todd. So it was going to a another tear each other legs off kind of race. We were called to the line and before we knew it, we were off on the grassy up hill into the woods. The pace was a little slower than usual at the start, but by the time we got to the first big steep climb, Brad was already taking his digs. Roger and Jon followed. I reacted and was only able to keep them in my sites. As I tired the push, I felt like I was pedaling squares. Todd, eventually came around and I hung onto his wheel for as long as I could. He would pull away through the tight single track, as my legs wanted nothing to do with applying power need to attack. I tired to make the time back up on the flat 2 track and grass field sections, but it was not going to happen. He dangled in front of me by about 30 seconds for almost the entire race. The good news was I was able to maintain pretty consistent lap times, so I know the endurance part is there. And I was able to come home with hardware by taking 5th place, so sniffing around the fringes of the podium sure is a lot better than not standing up there at all. So I got this to build on.
Congrats again to Brad on another win, Roger for keeping him honest and taking 2nd, and Jon rounding out the podium.
Time to decompress and get refocused for Brighton in a few weeks.
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