The Burn

This past weekend I raced The Burn. A mountain bike TT near Bailey Colorado starting and finishing at Wellington Lake. My team, Team Evergreen Racing, was putting on the race. The promoter had done a lot of work to get all the permits for this event. It's a lot of work and basically a thankless job. I wanted to make sure I helped him out at the race... as well as get a chance to try the coarse.

I showed up early and jumped in the registration booth. Basically I checked everyone's license and paper work before passing out riders numbers. I spend a couple of hours trying to quickly get everyone ready to go. After getting through all but about 20 people I dashed off to get myself ready for my race. Unfortunately I left myself with about 20 minutes before my start and I needed to get completely ready and my car was on the other side of the lake. I got ready as quickly as I could and warmed up riding back to the start line. (not a good way to start a race like this)

It wasn't long after the start that I knew things weren't going well. My son had been up most of the night before, so I was already tired and I felt a little dehydrated before the start. A couple of miles into this 22 mile TT, I thought I was going to puke! The worst part was the first couple of miles are all down hill and on a coarse with 4000 ft of climbing.. that's really bad feeling to have so early.

Well.. time to back it down a little. Start eating and drinking and see how things go. They got a little better but not much. By the second of the three major climbs I was clearly suffering! My back was killing me, my right knee was hurting and I was melting in the hot sun.

By the time I made it to the finish I was done. I grabbed a burrito and sat down, before I fell down. My original time goal was under 2 hours and after all that suffering I finished in 1:59:47! I wasn't even in last place, I wasn't anywhere near first either. The after party was good, I got a couple of giveaways and tried to start the recovery process. Everyone I saw and talked with had a great time. It was fun to see and talk with some of the CXers I had raced against last fall.

Overall, it was a great race and I look forward to hitting it a little harder next year. With a little preparation I should do better. I am going to ride the E-rock Century with my wife on Sunday, my next race.. Mid week Crit next Tuesday Evening.