So somehow I convinced Sonia to come out to Rocky Hill to ride and check out some sweet singletrack even though both I and another one of her friends told her she would hate it the first time. I'm pretty sure that is what happened.
We went out on Friday so we could get out for an early pre-ride on Saturday. It was effin' hot and super humid!! I had originally planned on doing a short Cat II lap but was stupid and hadn't realized the Cat II and Cat I loop was the same 17.5 mile loop. So off we went, like I thought, Sonia hated all the climbing at the first part, I do believe the line, "I hate all of these stupid rocks on this stupid hill!!!" came out at one point. Then she realized why the course was Rocky Hill : )
Once we got out of the first part of the climbing and into the flatter, more flowy singletrack the riding became fun!! We were cruising along at a pretty good clip, stopping every once in a while. The ride was a great pre-ride. Then the ride started getting a bit long, I was getting some looks from Sonia saying, "How long are we going to ride for?" After a bit more riding I started thinking the same thing... Then we stopped and Sonia asked, "How far in are we?" to which I responded, "about three-quarters of the way," I had no idea...
We kept trucking along, Sonia being a champ, and giving me dirty dirty looks until we got to the spot I knew was getting pretty close to the end. I sent Sonia down the easier trail with another lady while I rode the rest of the trail, good thing, it was significantly different with a lot of sweet, new singletrack. I ended up passing Sonia and other woman on the way down to the finish, I stopped by the turtle pond so the turtles could cheer Sonia up a bit, she was NOT happy with me. But after seeing turtles and having ice cream things were a bit better. We met up with Kyle and Mom for dinner on Saturday, it was great to see them!
Sunday brought on the race, it was warm and a bit muggy. I got a good warm-up in and felt pretty good, the legs were a bit sore from the long-than-expected pre-ride but they felt ok. As I expected, it was a hammerfest up the hills, the singletrack was feeling pretty good until about mile 7, then the legs started going. I eased up a bit but the legs did not come back and I couldn't get the heart rate to drop. No Bueno!! I held a bit easier pace but I was toast. I settled with pacing it in feeling the legs the whole way and trying to enjoy the singletrack. It was a bit of a disappointing end to the season but I learned to check the race course before riding from now on. I got some food after the race, the worst decision I made the whole day. Thankfully, Sonia was there to drive me home. The next 28ish hours after the race were pretty ugly but I'm better now and back to training!!
I ended up 5th overall in the series, not bad for only having five races and forgetting to turn in my Paydirt.
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