Over Trained

The previous post on this was very negative, so I decided to edit it out and just rewrite the whole thing once I had a little time to clear my mind.

The Guy's MASS race (more widely known as a word that starts with an N that I can't pronounce or spell correctly) was a great race. The course was very flowing, and although not too technical, there was one downhill that sent a few to the EMTs. I'll have to check my dad's Garmin, but the switchbacks had the potential to be over 45%. I raced my new Taurine (the owner almost gave it away, at a price that was extremely good. Like I could ride it hard for 2 or 3 years and still sell it for a lot more than I had origionally bought it for (yes, our bike shop likes us)), which felt great on the course, but was a bad idea. It was build on Friday and pretty much as soon as it was finished, we rode them (my dad got one too) that night, trying to beat the daylight and get as much of a ride in as possible. If you combine that hard ride with the Stoopid 50 and 2 weeks of overtraining, racing on Sunday was a suprize. And with the new crankset, a 29 44, found myself always wanting to be in the 44, and waysting energy. But a triple is on the way from Cannondale...

Where I live, a huge thunderstorm passed through the night before, and I thought that the trails were going to be very wet; much like the way Greenbrier was. But the storm moved north of the race and everything was dry and dusty. There were some showers in the morning, so I decided to race without glasses incase a storm did come through. Bad idea. It was so dusty that I was constantly getting dust in my eyes. From the start, I felt as if I was having a good day. Until we finished the prologue. Went back into the forest for our first real lap and I felt sluggish. All that training had built up and left me with no energy. Gunnar flew by me and I was in 3rd, and it stayed that way the whole race. At one point, Zach rode up behind me. He was pre-riding the course, and kept encouraging me. It really helped (THANKS ZACH) because the second lap felt much better. Cameron Dodge ended up winning (1:26) and Gunnar in second (1:29). I came in 3rd with a 1:30. I definitly learn a lot more from these races than from the ones that I do well in, so looking back on it now, it was a lesson that I had to learn sometime. Better now than at Mount Snow.