Iola = maybe a little too much excitment and prep

Well I need to pretext this weekend saying I did 22 miles of riding @ John Muir on Wednesday which felt great. When I say felt great I mean, I felt very comfortable on the bike as far as handling and my aerobic and anaerobic abilities. Saturday, I packed Saturday morning and headed out around noon, I got up there around 2:30 ish. I registered did 1 lap of pre-ride, which felt decent, I made it up all the hills w/ my 32-17 gear. the hill in the back of the property kills me though and it would be the only time I made it up that hill all weekend w/o walking.

After my lap of pre-ride I went and picked up my 9004 number plate and back numbers. I went back to my car and cooked up a few brats and sour kraut and snacked a little. I waited for it to get dark and then the fun began. Only I know what its like to have an entire WORS Race course to myself. I think that I wished the race was on Saturday, the two abbreviated laps I did of night riding were very fast and very fun. I skipped the lead out to the top of hill by the jump scaffolds and the bowl. It was the first time I had spent a good amount of time on quality single track at night and it was fun. I think I was riding sections faster at night than during the day, because during the daylight I was looking too far in advance and riding accordingly. The short course/long course sign for trail run was already up for the trail run in the morning which confused me a little bit.

Sunday rolled around and it was pretty darn cold in the morning, as I camped out but I knew that was going to happen and had made preparations accordingly, lots of blankets. I slept through the night and that was good. I went to sleep around midnight and woke up around 8.

After I left some leftovers from the night before for breakfast and banana I went for a ride around the parking lot to find anyone I knew. I found Gus, Theo, and Jordan a.k.a. J-dog was sporting his 2008 Big Sur, he hadn't even ridden it on dirt yet. So Iola would be a little bit of a learning experience for him. I did not get his post race reaction but I think things went well.

My race time was rolling around and I rode on the road some, did some last minute checks of my bolts and stuff, I hopped on the Cyclops trainers by registration for like 10-minutes and my legs felt very very loose. It was still 15-20 minutes before race time so I just chilled hung out and talked to some people. Race time rolled around and I found out my class was pretty big. Only after my race did I find out how big that actually was. I Chugged up the start hill alright, lot better than last fall where I endo'd in the first 100' of the race. Everything was going OK but I didn't have the power in my legs like I did the night before. I don't know if I had prerode too much or my legs had too much to tighten up or I was running the wrong gear. I know that my Heart doesn't like deviation, it like static wattage and a static HR. Big surges of power are not my forte. I did have a pretty decent day in the single track though, faster than I think I ever have before. I pretty much did an aggressive sunday ride rather than "race mode" and clocked in at a modest 1:46 putting me around 36 minute laps, not great but not terrible. I later found out I got 17th out of 19. I looked at other peoples numbers and realized there is at least like 16 series registered racers in my class. I know a few people within my own class that have openly admitted they should upgrade. Granted not everyone ends up competing for the whole series, you naturally get degretion. As long as I pile up the finishes and continue to work on my conditioning faster than the other people, thing SHOULD improve but I've already made it clear that WORS isn't my #1 focus this year.

I will do the Muskego Crit. Next week because I like that course and after that It will be a return to WORS in Lake Geneva's treadfest.