Mark's Blog

The race on Sunday went awesome.  Before the race I didn’t know what to expect.  I have been logging a lot of miles in preparation for this race.  I get there a little later than I wanted to and was forced to park a long way away.  I get everything ready and I roll up to the building to bull shit with some people.  After a little harassing it was time to roll to the back of the start chute.

As soon as Hauser said go it was off.  I had a crappy start up the hill and managed to put myself about mid pack before the first turn.  I managed to get some people behind me before the turn for the long straight to the single track.  Right before the bridge I seen out of the corner of my eye a guy go down really hard because he left the trail and hit a hole.  So I continue on my way and managed to be 4th to the single track behind Tyler, Jeff and Warren.  I managed to hang on to Tyler and Jeff for a little bit and then they got traffic between us and then it was a game trying to catch back on.  I managed to go to hard on the first lap and had to recover for a little bit on the second lap.    Right on the maple loop I managed to get passed by Steele and Troy, and I had recovered enough then to put some power down to try and hang with them.  I managed to pull away from Troy without a problem and then I got onto Steele’s wheel through the single track.  After a section of single track I managed to get ahead of Steele and tried to keep the power down to stay ahead.  I wanted to stay ahead of the hard charging elites but that didn’t work for me today.  Right after the long double track finish we turn right to head into the “1.5″ track to the finish.  Matter and Jesse LaLonde managed to pass me.  I tried to see if I could hang with them just to see how fast they were going, to fast for me.  Well we get to the little hill about 1 mile from the finish and I look back and see Steele, I thought I had a bigger gap than that.  So I managed to accelerate away from the hill fast enough to keep him behind.  I caught and passed two more people in the chute and kept Steele behind.  I beat him by 8 seconds, it is finally nice to be able to race with someone instead of being by myself for the race.

I got second which I didn’t expect because of my lack of training recently.  Next up is Lake Geneva, I always have done well there considering the amount of climbing that we have to do.

Later

After looking through the different bike companies I noticed that Cannondale has their 2010 stuff out.  I am very fond of the Scalpel and the Flash 29er.  I have always liked Cannondale except for the price difference between them and the other companies.  I have come to the conclusion you get what you pay for.  The Grand Failure has failed on me too many times and it is time to get a new bike.  I am also looking at the Epic 29er but like I said Cannondale has always treated me well in the past.

My 1999 F900 lasted 7 years and all I had to do was normal maintenance and get a new rear wheel when the axel broke.  That is why it is tempting to get a Cannondale because I know of the longevity of the bikes.

The ride tonight was awesome, I have lost some of the top end because of the shift in my training.  I am trying to log a lot of slow and long rides in order to drop some weight, it has been working.  I will after this race pick up the intensity to try and recover some of the top end that I have lost over the last 2 months.  I hope everyone likes the track this weekend, I think it is awesome and everyone that I talk to thinks the same thing.

Later

Here is a link to what I have been able to do lately:

http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200990812093

I will have to find the link for the Big & Rich concert later.

Later