Rookie errors abound for Sara and me. First, wrong tires for both of us. I usually error on running tires that are too aggressive when the trail has been wet or might get wet. For the first half of the race XR 1s were perfect. Once Mother Nature opened the floodgates, they packed up and started spinning. We both stopped a few times to drop the air pressure but there is only so much one can do with a dry tire in a muddy race. In addition, I had 2.2s front and rear so my back tire didn't want to spin by the last lap and I had some serious chain suck issues. At least most of us were in the same boat. In hindsight, I should have used the 29er.
Sara ripped the buckle off her shoe so she had to nurse trying to keep her shoe on while running and peddling. She felt good but the muddy conditions derailed any hopes of a trying to keep Jenna within sight on the last lap. The great thing about mountain bike racing is that conditions can change in a split second and all of a sudden you can find yourself flying off the front or wallowing, going backwards. Unfortunately, we couldn't take advantage of the muddy conditions.
Red Wing is a great course and super fun in any condition. Even though I couldn't generate any power or climb worth a darn, I really wanted to finish. It would have been easy to pull the plug after lap one, but I kept hoping my legs would come around. The start seemed fast and I wasn't able to recover and just had to ride along. I couldn't respond whenever someone would go by so it seemed like a training ride instead of a race.
Well, I've got to get back to cleaning the mud out of all my orifices and get ready for the mountain bike camp I'm leading this week. Thanks to the torrential downpours we get on a regular basis, we will get muddy.
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