Christopher's first race

It was somewhat of a last-minute decision to hike up to Eau Claire. I really wanted more single-track and Christopher had kept saying he wanted to go on a trip. Tom reluctantly agreed to come along and let me race.

Christopher did pretty good on the ride there and rode around on his bike without pedals while I prerode. On Sunday, he woke up cranky and not himself. When I said I had to sign up for my race though, he said he wanted to race too. So, we signed him up. He seemed to have fun and insisted on wearing his medal inside the restaurant we stopped at last night and to summer camp this morning. = )

I really enjoyed most of the course during the preride except for a rock garden they added simply to have a rock garden (well, that's how it seemed to me anyway). It was basically a long driveway of large rocks. I'd ride all of it but the last bit that you had to turn left.

My race was icky. I went way too hard my first lap trying to stay with the girls -- which didn't work for long -- and trying not to slow down the guys too much. My first lap was 43 minutes (which included some unintentional stopping trying to let guys pass) with a heart rate between 187 and 195 for 21 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't know at the time that I finished lap 1 not that far behind a group of girls. That definitely would have been the push I needed but Tom didn't think to mention it to me (watching Christopher is not exactly easy). I do much better when I'm just behind someone.

I had opted to use bottles for this race and, in hindsight, I should have taken the camelback -- I went a little too easy on the long sections when I was taking a drink and ended up a little dehydrated with a little stomach cramping the last lap. I was about 12 minutes behind the next girl and also about 12 minutes longer from my goal of finishing in.

But, I thought my technical riding was really good. I'm trying not to beat myself up too much. I hadn't done a mountainbike race since the Palos Meltdown and my last WORS race was last year's Kewaskum. I'd like to do decent (decent for me, anyway) at Crystal Ridge, Lake Geneva and the Palos Meltdown. I'm planning to do Kewaskum -- more of a training race for both the mountainbike and cross races coming up. If you see me slackin' off during the race, be sure to yell at me. = )