Big M XC

This past weekend, Kelly, Cory, and I went up to Manistee National Forest to race Big M.

We left around 11 on Saturday and drove the four hours up and over, with a little stop at Taco Bell on the way. Then we set up camp and pre-rode the trail. The trail was a six mile loop of pretty wide open trail. There was really only one technical descent. Since it was pre-ride pace, I didn't really notice the long gradual hill that lasted for about a mile and half halfway through the trail. I would the next day.

After the pre-ride, we walked around the town of Manistee and realized that there really isn't anything to do there. But we had a good dinner followed by good ice cream at House of Flavors. Sleeping on the ground was interesting. I always said I would never want to do that for a race, but it actually worked out really well, and $5 for the night is a pretty good deal.

The race was really, really, really fast. At least it was as long as I was able to hold on to the leaders, which was about 4.5 miles. When I was riding with the choo-choo train, we were cruising at 22-24 on the flats and about 18 up the long gradual hill that was much more noticeable this time. When we got to some steeper climbs and I wasn't able to keep up the crazy pace anymore, I fell off. Within ten seconds, they were out of my sight. That is how fast they were going.

Since I was pushing myself a little harder than I should have been, I blew up and about 5 more guys passed me. I held this position for the rest of the race (with the exception of passing Christian when he was on the side of the trail with a flat tire on the second lap and the subsequent pass-back with a mile left in the race). I ended up 14th out of 17.

Overall, I had a lot of fun, and I am feeling a little faster. With some training this fall at altitude, maybe I can make up for all these low placings with a good finish at Iceman in November.

Kelly fought through a bee sting on her eye in the first couple miles to finish and still beat her 14 y/o competitor. So she is still sitting on top of the Tailwind USAC series in her age/class. She's pretty tough for fighting through it all, a fight which her body objected to afterward, which required Benadryl to fix.

Cory had a large group to go up against in the Expert 19-29 category, where he placed 8th.

Sorry for no pictures.