I'll Race Anything That Moves!

So another race in the books today. Here's the race recap post on the MTBNJ board:

http://www.mtbnj.com/forum/showthread.php?p=36010#post36010

For the 2 of you not on that board I recommend clicking and reading. It's actually worth something this time. I never really thought there was much in the way of race tactics in a mountain bike race but there certainly is. Good stuff this Monday morning.

So now I'm itching to race again. There's a race up in NY state maybe 1:45 away. I discussed it with Nat and she's basically cool with it if I can honestly say the race is worth it for me. I don't know what the course is like so I can't say. Right now I'm 50-50. I need to balance my desire to do a race that eats a huge part of the day with my need to spend some time with the in-laws who go off to Taiwan the next day.

But right now I'm itching to race anything that moves. I'm hoping I get to work and there's a special Mountain Bike Race Day going on in the courtyard in Brooklyn. I drove home like Mario Andretti yesterday as the desire to go faster temporarily consumes me. Channeling Clerks, I'll race anything that moves!!!

It's nice to see all this training pay off though I have to credit Ben with giving me 2 pieces of advice. The first was to practice my race starts as such. Go really fast for 1 minute to simulate a race start. Then fall into a tempo pace for 5 minutes. This is basically what I did. Fly out of the gate and then let things settle down after that. The guys who are faster will pass you quietly and the chaff of the field will never catch you.

The second thing is that if you catch someone, pass them immediately. There's a reason you caught them. Don't fall into the lazy trap of being complacent and going slower than you should. As simple as it sounds it happens a lot. You come up to a guy slowly and are afraid that you will pass then crash or pass and be passed immediately. But it rarely happens. The guy you caught is often times going slightly faster than he should because he heard you coming on and started pressing. So chances of him catching you are slim once you go by.

So another race in the books, this time with a good result. At most I have 2 more races in the next 3 weeks then the season is over and I can fall into the long dark winter holding pattern. I have a much bigger base than I did at this time last year and I know what I need to work on. So even if my 2007 has not been amazingly productive I've seen a nice ending at least once and I've learned a lot along the way.