Midweek Racing

So I made it out to the Wednesday night Trek Mountain Bike series at Hardwood Hills tonight. It was a nice way to get a good hard sprint type ride in midweek.

Since last post I had a really good, hard, road ride on Monday evening that was an excellent test of my knee with no pain whatsoever so that was positive. It was probably close to 70 km (I don't have my computer mounted on my road bike yet) and the ride which initially got my knee into difficulty about a month and a half ago.

Below is a picture of the steed at Hardwood. It was actually taken post ride but it looks like it could sub in for the before shot so that is what I will pretend.



There were a ton of people there with close to 300 participants from very young to older. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere and the weather was perfect with cool temps and no humidity.

The format was different than what I was used to. Rather than divide people up by age and ability over the same course, you race all age categories at once over a course of your choosing from a beginner 6 km to a tougher 15 km loop. I didn't really know this so when they told me to select my course, I just ticked the box which said 'Serious ... 10 km'. I figured there would be a couple laps with other people in my age group. As it turns out there was a field over 70 strong of all categories just doing one lap. This made for a pretty short race but it was fun.

I ended up 2nd out of 7 in my age group and 11th out of 74 overall. My time was just over 30 minutes which gave me an average speed of just over 20 km/h which doesn't seem too bad for a mountain bike race. The terrain was non technical and started with a long double track climbing section probably close to a kilometre long. This helped spread out the field before the single track. Once in the single track I only passed a handful of people and rode most of the loop on my own. Near the end I passed a hardman on a single speed when he went over his bars trying to fend off my vicious onslaught. I actually felt kind of bad because he was totally ripping it considering he only had one gear on his machine. Such is racing.

It was pretty fun but I think that next time I might try a longer distance to get a better workout. Now that I know the system I won't be subject to the same confusion and find myself doing only a medium distance when there is more pain to be had for the same price.



Above is a picture of the finish line on the left and some of the people recently finished on the right. Nice long shadows as the sun is going down. On the left you can see the dark, damp, wheel sucking mulch that hardwood has a penchant for spreading on this section of the course. It feels like riding through peanut butter (not fast). I guess it would be soft if you fell in a sprint for the line. Anyway, overall it was a good experience and now that I own the plate, I may as well try to do some more. I will also try to get down to Mississauga for some Monday night crits if possible.

Over and out.