Sunday, November 20, 2011

No Spring at Sprinker

Quite the opposite of spring in fact, with clear skies overnight leading to a frosty morning and temperatures struggling to get above freezing. Numb fingers and toes were the order of the day for SCX #6 at Sprinker Park, Tacoma.

Despite feeling cruddy this last week, fighting a head cold that just won't go away, I felt optimistic going into today's race. The course was fun, and a couple of changes from last year made it a little twistier and all the sand rideable. They added another run-up, but overall I was fairly confident I could have a good race here.

I took the hole-shot, but by the first run-up I was fading and just couldn't sustain the high intensity required to stay with the leaders. I watched as team mate Kristi left me behind to sit strongly in 2nd. To add insult to injury I dropped a chain. Not once, but twice. It would be nice to blame this for my getting dropped, but in reality I only lost a few seconds each time. I just didn't have any spring in my legs to power through anything.

A couple of laps to go, sitting in 7th, I wasn't losing ground anymore, in fact I was gaining a bit. Seems like although I had no spring, I did still have endurance. I was closing in on Kristi who had taken a hit with some mechanicals. Maybe we could work together to catch 5th place? No such luck though, as I couldn't hold her wheel to start with and then when I did get back up to her she couldn't hold mine. I think mentally she had just had enough. With my legs feeling a little better I did get 5th place in my sights, I fought hard, but she took me by 3 seconds at the end.



Not a good day for me, or any of our team. Crashes, mechanicals, sickness, all took it's toll today. For SCX we all get to drop our worst race, this might just be the one for everyone today. So looking back on the week, today's result shouldn't have been a surprise for me. In an effort to give my body time to recover and shake my head cold, training time totaled an hour and a half this week - all pretty close to the race. Too little, too late.....



1 comment:

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