Living It To The Fullest: ACC Conference Mtn Bike Race #1

Not only has summer ended and classes begun but the 2011 collegiate mountain bike season is now also under way. Our first race of the season was this past weekend in Wilkesboro at the Dark Mtn course. The weekend was hosted by Campbell University. It was nice that they decided to have their races in Wilkes since it is basically in our back yard. The first race of the season was the short track race which is a 30 minute race plus one lap. The course usually varies from a half-mile to a mile in length and riders do as many laps as they can within the 30 minutes. I didn't know how my top end speed would be since I had not raced since the first week of July at the Tour de Toona' in Pennsylvania. Since July I had taken a few weeks off the bike then put in a good bit of hours in August. I knew my base miles would give me some fitness but I had no hard efforts in my legs yet. With a few of the Lees McRae riders coming over to race in our conference, I knew the race was going to be anything from easy. From the gun Lees McRae rider Brad Perely (who outside of collegiate cycling races for the Cannondale/Champion-System Pro Mtn Bike Team) took the lead and never looked back. I was able to pass everyone on the first climb and go into the single track in 2nd and right behind Brad. After 3 laps of following him I blew up! I couldnt handle his pace with my early season form. I eased off the pace and started to drift backwards. The second half the race was extremely hard for me since I had gone above my ability on the first half. I suffered through the remaining 15-20 minutes but was still able to hold on to take a 5th place finish overall. Racing a little smarter I could have most likely finished a few places higher (or maybe not) but I was just trying to give it everything I had to test where my current fitness is at this time. Overall it was a solid race for ASU with Clayton, James and I all finishing in the top 5. Later that afternoon was the Super-D race which is a leman start race (meaning everyone starts away from their bike then runs to it to start the race) with a slight uphill start then a downhill to the finish with lots of jumps and rocky technical areas. With many of us having running backgrounds we managed to get to our bikes before most everyone else and the rest is history. We made an ASU train on the front of the race as we took spots 1 through 6! Saturday evening after we all got back to Boone we went out to eat with my parents at the new Mellow Mushroom which is SO good! We all destroyed the pizza after working up a hunger from riding bikes all day. Sunday was the cross country race which was a 3 lap race for us (21 miles). We were all sore from the previous day which we knew was going to make the 21 mile race seem like double that. We all had a great start and were at the front of the race as we went into the first section of single track. After the first two mile climb it was all ASU and Jake from Virginia Tech at the front of the race. Unfortunately for Jake he flatted near the end of the first lap which left only ASU riders at the front of the race. Each lap we continued to widen the gap of the racers chasing us and ended up over ten minutes ahead of the next closest rider to us that was not ASU. Derek (my roommate) took first on the day while Clayton and I took 2nd and 3rd respectively. Overall I was pleased with how I felt this weekend. Our lap times yesterday were a lot faster than they were on the same course in May and most of us are not even close to our "race shape" yet. With a few more weeks of racing and hard training rides we should be back into top form. This next weekend we will be racing at Virginia Tech which always has some very tough trails. If we keep riding like we are capable then our goal of finishing top 5 at mountain bike nationals is not to far out of reach. We have a little under two months till we fly out to Angel Fire, New Mexico at the end of October for nationals and these next few weeks will be good indicators of how we will do out west.
-Zeb