Ouchy

Went down the Hurcan for the 2nd ICUP race. Pre rode on Friday, a bit over 12 miles, sandy, dry, pea gravel washes, ooh I was hoping for a change in lap counts. Got hints that it would happen, alas it didn't.

Kim and Danny were our hosts for the weekend in Washington, Friday night their neighbor was having a huge teenage party, with band, luckily they were quiet. So we got some good dinner and sleep.

Race day was in the upper 80's still and sunny. 3 laps were in store. I had a good start, then we started passing the 19-29 experts. At which point Reed said something like go Rainbow, i am not sure what the hell that means Could be related to my leftward leanings? After that I was in a nice paceline about 4 miles in, put a gap on them and settled in, Pulled some youngster for a while and dropped him, part way into lap 2 jeppson comes around me, i catch on to him a bit later and we came through the lap together with Sam M. At this point I realized my arms were hurting bad, my legs were good, but the arms had nothing, with a course that has 3 million 1 meter rollers on it, i was dreading lap 3. I ended up losing 4 or 5 places in this lap and my lap time was over 10 minutes longer than lap 2. Got 10th in the lon run, which is far better than last years DNF. Lyna got 5th and should be 2nd overall for sport women now.

Saturday evening was a party at Kim and Danny's, Lyna and I went to bed at like 10 while the party went to 1am, we were tired. Sunday we rode from Kim and Danny's to church rocks and back, nice easy ride.

I will uploaded a but load of photos tonight.

Here is my HR vs elevation chart for Cholla










Notice the slight HR drop at around mile 25, followed by a larger drop at 28-29. This is the 3rd lap. and soon after 2 hours clicked by. Now compare this to the HR on the Nova XC graph from a week before, where i had fuel left in the tank and ramped it up at the end.









Pacing, all about pacing. Cholla, i let it hang out, took some opportunities and suffered at the end. NOVA, I paced and had a lot left at the end, I need to err on the side of Nova, but make sure I get around people and keep pushing when i have something left. At nova i lost an XC placing and 1 or 2 spots in the overall as a result.

Cholla does not disapoint me, cause i was able to hang longer, this bodes well for my races, later in the year.