Spring Breaker

Poor sprinting form,
perhaps I should work on that.

This blog has really started to feel like a roadie blog, so I am glad that to say that this post will be mostly, if not all about mountain bikes. Thank God. I'm also a few weeks late on writing this post, but here I am putting down dribble that maybe one other person may find interesting, but that is good enough for me.

Since my last post I raced one road race and crit, which I had my best performance in. Finding a top 20 spot in both events, and even got to attack in the road race, only to be pulled back roughly 5 minutes later. In the crit, I accomplished my only goal which was to get my teammate in good position on by the end of the first lap. Since I am not a great crit racer, I decided that it would be best for my team if I worked for everyone else and then sit in for the rest of the race.

Austin Rattler 100k
This year, I got the opportunity to race the Austin Rattler Leadville Qualifier in Smithville (Austin), Texas. Here's a long-winded synopsis:

After the second Snake Creek Gap TT, I was contacted by the coach of Union College's cycling team, Sean Trinque, about going with them to the Austin Rattler. I normally don't get to go on trips like this just because of logistical reasons but this time was different. The week leading up to the race was spring break which made things a lot easier to sort out. I got the green-light from my parents and boss to head out to what would be the biggest race I have ever done.

Union College is in Barbourville, Kentucky so on Monday 4/4 I drove the 4 hours up to Barbourville. I arrived at 2pm which gave us plenty of time to go ride. Sean and I hit up the Union College practice trail which is roughly 7 miles of technical, fun, 90's style hand-cut single track. So much fun! There is also going to be a collegiate MTB race there this year! While in Barbourville I was given a tour of the campus, given a free meal in their dining hall, and stayed with some of the team members in their apartment. Top-notch treatment.

Tuesday 4/4, at 4am we embarked on the 16 hour drive to Austin, Texas. Thankfully we left so early that I slept the first 4 hours knocking 1/4 out of the trip easily. For the rest of the 12 hours, I had the foresight to spend $80 on portable batteries for my phone so I just watched Netflix and ate candy. At hour 8 Yves Ketterer (born and raised in Germany) said "I have never been in a car this long in my entire life." To which we replied "Well, we're only half-way there." Yves was astonished. We finally arrive in Smithville at 11PM.

Wednesday 4/5: we got our first chance to ride the course for the race. I was surprised by the amount of singletrack and by how rocky the open sections were. In fact, I can't say that having a hardtail would be an advantage this race. The singletrack sections were incredibly tight and twisty which at my height made them pretty difficult to ride quickly.

Thursday 4/6: We got up fairly early and helped set up for the race. I had planned to do a "hot lap" of the course so I could get a feel for how the course would flow and feel at race pace. I was riding really well but about 15 minutes in I cut a sidewall in my rear tire and couldn't get the valve out so my day ended right there. Thankfully, I had the foresight to bring a spare tire; albeit a heavy winter tire but a rideable tire nonetheless. My other concern was that it may not seat tubeless but my Trucker Co sealant made it so I could seat the tire tubeless with nothing more than a floor pump!

Friday 4/7: We headed to the race venue for the pre-race meeting. For me, this was sort of surreal. My first exposure to mountain biking that wasn't Rampage or Crankworx was the Race Across the Sky movie(s) so meeting Dave Weins and seeing the Leadville organizers was an incredible experience. I forgot to mention that I was feeling sick all week so all of Friday I was trying to purge as much mucus as I could from my system to hopefully have some clear lungs for Saturday's race. I did some intervals that night and could tell that my purge has worked because I could breathe really well and my confidence for Saturday's race went back up.

Saturday 4/8, Race Day: The race had an 8am start, which is about 2 hours earlier than I'm used to, not that it mattered performance-wise. There were 820 starters and I started somewhere around the first 100, so not the best call-up but by far not the worst. The race had a neutral roll-out which is understandable given the field size, but still awful nonetheless. At some point the race actually started and the pace went up to something that was way faster than I had anticipated. I think I averaged above 15mph the first lap and an average HR of 188bpm (my max is 206bpm). I knew I would be unable to maintain that pace the entire race but there was no way I was going to back off of it unless my body forced me to. And it did, granted on the second lap I stopped twice to let air out of my tires because the course was so rough, but I still 25 minutes slower. My third lap felt a bit more like my second, I think I got behind on my nutrition and I started approaching "the wall," being a relatively experienced 6-hour racer I knew how to fix that problem but by the time my supplements had kicked in I was too close to the finish for it to matter. My third lap was 8 minutes slower than my second lap. I finished the race in 4 hours and 53 minutes, 23 slower than my goal. I was 5th in my category and 159th out of 820 starters overall.

I am thankful that there was overcast and it sprinkled most the race keeping the temperature about 10 degrees cooler than what was forecast and I finished the race exactly 5 minutes before it started to rain for real.

I learned a lot of lessons this race, I failed to find a good group to ride with which definitely hindered my performance. Finding a group during these races is key for morale and making sure that you don't have to do all of the work in the open sections. Pacing was more important in this race than any other I have been in; given my lap times, I definitely have a lot of work to do regarding pacing.

Overall, I am happy with my showing at the Austin Rattler, I do wish that I had qualified for Leadville, but I'll have my time for that later. I owe Union College Cycling a huge thank you for allowing me to join them on this trip. They're a great group of riders and they treated me like family over the week, so thank you.