Year in review: the peak

I began a week back in Pennsylvania by traveling to camp Alleghany in Allegheny State Park (New York) for the Raccoon Rally. One of my favorite races of years past, it was the first time in 3 or 4 years I'd come to race it. Unlike the Root 66 series which sends each age class off a few minutes apart, the Rally sends the entire class, sport in my case, off at once. I like this because you get some idea of how you are doing overall, not just in your age group. Well I started off strong but not too hard. I was near the front as we headed down the first half mile of dirt road and into the double track climb. Entering the climb I worked my way forward until I had caught first place, where I decided just to sit on his wheel. We rolled together for a while, but then I faded off just a bit and as I was losing his wheel I got passed by another rider. I hit the top of the hill in 3rd place. It was a bit chilly on top, too chilly for my knees which stiffened up on me and sapped some of my power. Over the course of the race I was caught by two other guys. I rode a great race for 5th overall in sport, and 1st in my age group. Though I'd come to the race really shooting for 1st overall in sport, I was happy with the result.

Then came a week of fantastic training. I put in a lot of good mileage, even setting a new personal best for the time it took to ride over the hills to Smethport. The following week back in Connecticut I kept everything pretty light and easy. Mid to late week I did some easy repeats up east rock, in the race. This really got me mentally prepared for riding Mt. Washington. That weekend I headed for North Conway, NH. I met my parents and John and Cindy. Saturday the 14th was my birthday and we took advantage of some fantastically clear skies to drive up the Mt. Washington auto road for a course preview and to take in the view from the top. The next day we were up quite early and headed for the mountain, it was the practice ride for the race. I was here to see what I could do and to see if it might be worth entering the race in the future. I surpassed my highest goal by 5 and 1/2 minutes, with a time of 1 hour 24 minutes 33 seconds. I'd peaked perfectly.

Unfortunately, I came off that ride a little too self confident. The next weekend was the USA Cycling National Mountain bike championships. I rode once in the week between the hill climb and nationals. I quickly lost the mental game, and found I just didn't have good legs. I finished the race in 9th of 9 in the age 19-24 sport class. I certainly learned a lot more from this race than I'd learned from the other events of the season.

I returned to training for a few weeks before heading back to Mount Washington. This time for the 24 hours of Great Glen. I was part of a team of 4 guys that would ride relay style for 24 hours straight. Team Dirtnuts 2.0 was much more prepared this year and we brought pit help with us. The help we found out is priceless in the pursuit of a good finish. We were all in good shape, and it showed. We posted 12 laps that were faster than our fastest lap of the previous year. We rolled through the night strong and into the morning at a very fast pace. We completed 27 laps, good enough for 7th of 20+ four-man sport teams and 14th overall. This really concluded the height of my season. I entered a period of slightly burned out rest for a few weeks. Cycling for the year was hardly over though, cyclocross was yet to completely take over me.