MOUNT SNOW CLASSIC CROSS COUNTRY

MOUNT SNOW CLASSIC CROSS COUNTRY

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Location: Mount Snow, West Dover, Vermont

turn out to the race was really good... like it has been all year... for the pro/cat1 open category I am guessing over 30 again…weather has good, bit cloudy and humid and 80 degrees.

I had a bunch of mechanical issues in this race…. The freewheeling of my hub wasn’t working right … it would make a loud winding sound when I wasn’t pedaling... not sure if this hurt anything but it was pretty annoying… my chain came off 5 times…my own fault, I’ve never been very good with adjusting my derailleur… the three smallest rings of my cassette were packed with grass and mud thick enough that they didn’t work…that probably wasn’t too much of a disadvantage considering that everyone was probably having similar mud issues (except of Thom Parsons who was riding a single speed) …also I had a flat tire on the last lap decent… I am pretty sure I was in the top 10 before the flat but fell into the teens after…

The silver lining in it all is that now I know the things I need to fix before racing here again in a few weeks and windham for the east cup races… also… I discovered the possibility of using the pond at he bottom of the course as a after race clean up place…took a dip with Wheels and Burns after the race and it felt really good… I think I found a new mount snow tradition… I noticed some big goose droppings on the out side rim of the pond so hopeful this pond isn’t too contaminated with bird poop



I just registered last night for the east cup races… it was pretty pricey $65 per race… I don’t get why it is so much more expensive fro the east cup race than it is for regional races…I can do 5 regional races for the same price as two east cup races…I paid $25 dollars to race yesterday at mount snow… in a few weeks I will be charged $65 to race on the same course… where dose the large additional expense fit in? more people sign up for the east cup races…I would think the more people, the more profit, and the less that would need to be charged to make the race happen….despite the lofty price tag I am looking forward to both of these races and i plan on having a good time.

PATS PEAK MTB Festival,Henniker NH 2009

I went over to mount A and did some hill intervals on the access road 3 times in the past couple weeks in preparation for the upcoming ski mountain races… pats peak… Windham… small mount snow race… and big mount snow race…

On Sunday I raced the first one… pats peak… the turn out was good…30 something, I think (didn’t count)… the weather was nice… around 80... it seemed like a reasonably sunny dry day but the trail was water logged from heavy rain the day before…

I think the mount A hill intervals helped… I was feeling better than normal on the climbs …it was short lived though… by the last two laps (of 5 ) I was back to my normal slow and steady climbing … I came in 7th ( I was happy with that)… here are the rest of the results…

next weekend I don’t have any races planned… Andrew and I have hesitant plans to do some mountain biking @ mount A ( mount a web site ) …speaking of Andrew he had a good race at pats peak, coming in second... especially impressive because he won the 6 hour race the day before and the week before he did the 7 day BC bike race with Burns (came in 10th)... hopefully he will completely burn himself out with some more long hard rides this week ... so i can school him this weekend and inflate my ego.

why dose realizing i missed a race make me panic?

why dose realizing i missed a race make me panic?

I missed last weekends race… the root 66 one in ware mass… I didn’t realize there was a race till about an hour before the start of the race … so I went through my panic mode for about 10 min till I realized that there was know way I was going to make it before the start… and I was a little bit disappointed in myself that I could let missing a race get me so worked up and worried… I go to these races for fun…so why did I get so flustered… Am I on some ego trip where I feel I need to ride my bike faster than others to prove myself ?… if I am alone riding fast and no one is around to see or care the ride doesn’t feel quite as fulfilling as if I rode fast under race conditions and had an official result and witnesses to prove that I had rode fast… so I guess @ the end of the day I am just a tool, trying to impress others…

I suppose we all tools to some degree… humans are social animals, always doing stuff to be loved, get attention and respect… if I didn’t care what anyone thought of me I would always we wearing the same sweat suit… I would ever shave and I would fart, pick my nose in public and wouldn’t race as much… if at all.

Despite the tool racing makes me I don’t think I will stop doing it anytime soon… racing is rewarding it creates goals and motivation in my life that keep me driven to be a healthy and fit person… and maybe that dive transfers over to other aspects of my life in a positive way... I suppose the same competitive drive that make a person driven also makes them more susceptible to getting worried angry or depressed when things don’t go as planned…