Keweenaw Chain Drive Festival Race Recap: It felt like the race started the day before, in the sweltering heat of the sun beating in our car windows as we drove to the Keweenaw penisula. Once we hit Poplar, WI the temp jumped 20+ degrees to 90. Once we got to the hotel, we went for a quick ride while the AC in the hotel room was cooling it down for our return. Ahhh......
Saturday morning it was already hot and humid by the time the roll-out started at 10am. The race starts in Houghton, but heads over the bridge to Hancock for all but the first 1/4 to 1/2 mile of the race. Once the patrol car pulled over and the race started I was drafting off the lead mens group. That lasted until we climbed this monster switchback climb that took us to the singletrack. The lead group had to slow down and filter into singletrack which gave me time to catch back up to the lead group of men. I raced with that pack of men for the first half of the race - which was really fun! I was mostly in the back of the pack, and I don't think they were going full-on race pace, but it was cool to ride with a group for such a long time. I ended up getting dropped on this really long uphill. I just didn't have enough power in my legs and thought I could catch back up on the downhills. Didn't happen. I passed Scott as he dropped out and I felt really bad. He's having a rough year - again. Maybe some sequalae from drinking bad water for two years? The last 10 miles (of 32) I got really tired, probably cuz the races I typically do are around 20 miles. The last 5 miles I felt as if I were riding backwards - I could tell I was going really slow. I downed 2 liters of water from my hydration pack (its the Chris Eatough design Jansport pack - its light and worked fantastic) and a bottle of cytomax and still didn't have enough water. At one point in the race, I got really hot - like flames coming out of the skull hot. I was still happy with my day - I was 20' faster than last year's time (last year I was sick from drinking bacteria laden water from our contaminated well - not finding that out until early July) and I was 30' ahead of the second women. My goal was to finish in the top 10 mens overall - I was 7th. It was pretty cool to get to ride with the men.
The finish of the race is only 2 miles from the start, and the race is point to point with great singletrack. The race seems harder than some of the other longer races I do each year, because of the singletrack. I can't just put my head down and go hard, I have to mentally keep it together to be able to ride singletrack, especially once I get tired. It was also pretty cool race cuz I ran into an old friend from college that also did the race and got to talk to a Trek employee about equipment, etc.