Race Report: Winter Short Track Race #2

Last week's race went pretty well for my first race but, what was the second race going to be like? All week I have been trying to recover from the extremely hard effort that went into the first race. I was pretty tired, unmotivated, and training the past week didn't go so well. It's actually a good thing that I pre-registered because otherwise I'm sure that I wouldn't have shown up. During my warm up I still felt tired and sluggish. I pushed through the warm up and lined up at the start. My start was terrible! I got behind a slow poke but not sure I could have gone much faster anyways. I entered the woods towards the back of the pack.

After last weeks lap 1 blow up I wanted to take the first lap nice and easy. I just stayed on the wheel in front of me and lucky there were no crashes this time. I passed him on the uphill fire road and found another guy to race. I stuck right behind him for the next 2 laps - it was pretty easy but I didn't think I had another gear to go around him at the time. We caught another rider while climbing on the 3rd lap. Lets call this rider "Joe".

Sidebar: Last week my friend, Jon, marked this "Joe" fella and basically said "Beat him you can do it".

So when I saw "Joe" climbing right in front of me I knew I was going to lay it all out there! My fatigue left quickly and felt energized. I was on the hunt! There are 3 of us "Joe" is in the front and I'm in the back. Another Clydesdale rider passed all of us and "Joe" jumps on his wheel and they pedal off. Once I make it to my strongest part of the course I hammer past the other guy and try to catch "Joe". A few other riders got between us but I finally could see him on the climb. I passed the finish line and started lap 5 and Jon starts yelling "That's Joe, he's right in front of you!" "I know, I got this" I grunted. I tailed him all the way around the track, we both went through the soft grassy area. My strongest part of the track was coming up, this as my chance. As we made the right turn back onto the fire road Joe went wide and I gunned it and stayed tight inside and went as fast as I could go. I wanted to make sure and drop him and not give him a wheel to chase. I was looking down and pushing my legs as hard as I could. By the time we got to the woods I had about a 5 second lead. I went as fast as I could on the downhill. I could hear another rider right behind me - I thought it was Joe. Lucky it was someone from his team but not Joe. The uphill came and I was still pushing. Sweat running into my eyes, snot running down my face but I didn't dare wipe it for fear Joe might catch me. Made it through the grassy/muddy area and again hammered some more to the finish line. No Joe around me!

A great finish for me! Almost made it a mid-pack finish - 27th out of 41 riders. But I also shaved off 2 minutes from last weeks time or 20 seconds per lap. Not bad for a 30 minute race!

Thanks Pedaling Paul for the pics! Go check out his blog, there's a link on the bottom right of this page.