First win in a long time

It's been a long, long time (15 years) since I outright won a race, not just my catagory but posted the top time overall. So excuse me if I'm fired up about last night. Granted there weren't many real fast folks there, but still a win is a win and I'm pretty happy with that.

The course up at Great Glen was a bit greasy in spots but the little bit of moisture in the ground made the gravel roll pretty quick and some of the squirley corners seemed to offer a touch more traction.

My warm up was a 40+ minute lap with Elizabeth as she rode the short course, I have to laugh as she wasn't a fan of getting muddy. I put in a couple 10 to 15 second efforts while I rode with her to wake up the legs, but I never really got the body "hot". In all it was a pretty good warm up, except for the fact that I didn't pre-ride the technical singletrack section.

In the actual run I felt pretty good, not super fast, but good. I was able to tick over a fairly big gear and on the first sections of single track I felt pretty good, I slid out on one section but it didn't really slow me down at all, and then on first short tech climb I lost traction and almost fell over backwards- I used a couple choice words. The adrenaline was pumping at that point and I was able to push a big gear straight through to Sven's Chase (it's kind of cool to have a trail named after you, but when that trail almost puts you on the ground every time you start to wonder if it's more a curse then a blessing). I then crushed myself getting up to Whiplash thinking I could recover a bit out there, that sort of worked until I slid out on the big rock and had to run up to the top of that short section. I then felt great riding the bottom section clearing several root sections that looked to be slick, just as I was getting cocky a bit of pilot error put me on line to hook my bars on a tree and sure enough down I went. So a bit more running (never good for the recovery)and then jumping on just before the climb, needless to say I exited Whiplash breathing hard- really hard. Onto the big ring and into the downhill. I went as hard as I could and found myself airborne a couple times. On the big sweeping right hand turn I was talking myself saying "trust it, trust it" as I really didn't want to touch the breaks and it just felt like the tires were going to slide out. I used every piece of real estate on the turn but exited with good speed and carried much of the next hill. From that point on it was all out back and many times I felt like I just couldn't go faster and in fact it felt like I was going to end up keeled over and in the ditch but I was able to keep it rolling. A few minutes later I was in and finished.

I knew I was a bit slower then last week but I was anxious to see how I did against Mike, who I've been battling with for a few years- and I got him by 20 seconds.

So there you go, my first winning moment in a long, long time. Of course this could all be premature and Eli could crush me by letting me know of a timing error- but in the meantime I'll enjoy the moment.

By the way Nk didn't race last night, impacting out TWAF team standings up at GGTOC, and I'm pretty sure JJ won his division- so everyone had a good night (I say that cuz' Nk got to catch up on his beauty sleep).

One more thing- T-shirts are here- let me know if you want one! sven@glengroup.com


DEA