finally feeling it...

While Coyote Hill was a complete debacle, the last two races helped me gain my confidence back, and I was reminded me what it feels like to get into a groove during a race.

Domnarski Farm was 2 X 10 mile laps of hard-core backwoods mountain biking.  That course had some of everything and a whole lot of muddy puddles.  I ended up pulling a third place finish there after finally letting myself start off slow and  easy, just like my legs like.  I tend to feel good after about 45 minutes and drop the hammer then.  If I start off too fast, I spend the rest of the race thinking about how much I want to quit...  not a good state of mind.  Regardless of how well I did, I was left wondering if I'd pushed hard enough; I was still able to run up the basement stairs that night with a load of laundry.

Pat's Peak Cross-Country Race was today, and again, I started off easy.  The course went straight into climbing, and there was nowhere to rest.   I don't remember it being so technical the last time I'd done it a couple years ago, but it's definitely changed for the better.  It was a true mountain bike course: on a mountain with challenging terrain.  I watched as Crystal, Jena, and Mo rode away from me in the beginning, but as the technical single-track wound it's way up the mountain, I maintained sight of Jena and Mo for a while.  Eventually, Mo was completely out of sight, but Jena and I sort of rode together for most of the first lap.  She'd had some issues with her brakes before the start of the race, but the problem resurfaced before we finished the first lap.   I found out later that she wasn't able to finish.

Thinking that I was still chasing Crystal and Mo,  I let myself hope that I'd catch sight of them again after I started gaining momentum in the 2nd and 3rd laps - the 3rd being my best.  I had some good encouragement from the sidelines telling me that I wasn't that far away from Mo, and I kept thinking, cool, but where's Crystal.  I didn't realized until the awards that Crystal didn't finish either.   I ended up in second.  I have no idea what my time was, but I had kept a general watch on my lap times during the race and knew that I had finished the race in well under 3 hours.

I'm not exactly sure what's changed for me in the past two weeks since Coyote Hill, but I'm willing to bet it has to do with the fact that I've actually had time to ride my bike.  I got in one really good 5 hour mountain bike ride this week and a 25 mile ride this past Friday night that I wasn't really recovered from yet.  I did a little bit of yoga and a little bit of technique work.  However,  I think the biggest change I've undergone is a drastic loss of stress.  The school semester is over, and I've only got one class going on right now while I work as many hours as possible, ride my bike a bunch, and spend every minute that I can with my daughter.  I didn't realize how stressed I was over school.

In the upcoming weeks, I'm planning to get in one really long ride every week and add some more commuting to my routine.  Next weekend is a trip to Kingdom Trails with the kids and no racing, and I'm hoping to do a little more relaxing as soon as I'm done with my class on Modern American Grammar.