Mission in Motion Cycling Team News
Saturday, July 18, 2009
6 hours of power mountain bike race!
Went and prerode the day before and it was a fun, hilly rooty, rocky wild place.. perfect conditions except for a few mud spots here and there. Tiny bit of rain and kind of slick but typical mountain bike conditions for this year. Each lap is a 10.2 mile loop (or there-about)
The day of the race, there was a lemans start of approx a quarter of a mile out to some trees, back in, then you grab your bike off a rack and head out. Margaret hadn't run at all and was kind of nervous about that since she was starting..... well, she was very careful as she knew that she would pass alot of people on the dirt road climb up to the single track so she didn't run terribly fast to save herself for that climb. Apparently the people were totally bunched up out there in the woods and it held her back some, as all the partners were coming in and doing the hand slap and heading out, I was getting nervous wondering where she was and hoping that she hadn't crashed or anything... finally all the other womens teams were gone and me and one other person were there waiting for our partners.. then she came!! Yahoo... finally!!! everything was fine..
We slapped hands and I grabbed my bike and rode like a banchi up the 1 1/2 miles of dirt road and managed to pass a bunch of people that had headed out way before me.. it was awesome... then one by one, I picked off all the womens teams as I did really well on all the roots and the technical stuff (thank god for all those mountain rides prior)and I just flew through that stuff like an animal and it felt good, then down to the finish, through the walk chute and we slapped hands and she was off... So, I made up 8 minutes on that lap and we were ahead of the other womens teams by 5 minutes... yahoo.. so margaret went faster that lap and we kept the lead, even gaining more minutes.. nice to see the board between laps to see what needed to be done to keep a lead.. then I went out again, figures my legs were starting to burn for the 2nd lap.. but I held it with finishing only 2 1/2 minutes slower than the previous lap (after a nice fun crash in the mud at the bottom of a wicked downhill).. and she went out for the final lap even faster than her 2nd lap.. and we finished a good solid 30 minutes faster than the fastest womens groups.. We were psyched!!! I had so much fun.. felt great which was nice and we walked away smiling as you always do after some good hard mountain biking.. What a time!! and after not racing mountain bike in 4 years! I think I have to do another one this year... And next year, when I am all better and back again.. watch out, I am going to do mount snow and all the other tough ones out there!!!
