I've now completed my 3rd race in the series, the GHORBA Big Ring Challenge.

This course is the least technical of, well, of pretty much any trail I've ridden. It's very narrow and curvy, with a million corners and trees, but there are no tecnical features, and very little climbing.

I had high hopes going into this race knowing that I could handle the course.

I pre-rode the course with my husband and my 15 year old the day prior to the race. Unfortinately, my 15 year old didn't really have the fitness and decided to whine for half the ride. This meant I was more focused on keeping him going than the actual trail, and didn't get to practice anything "at speed". Lesson learned! Don't try to combine a family ride with a race pre-ride.

Sadly, the water there did not sit well with my tummy and caused me some ... er.... issues all evening. Let's just say I was battling dehydration long before the race started!

So I showed up ready to race, not just show up. I hoped to do well, and take a podium spot. If any course of the series were suited to me, this one was it. Unfortinately, it was apparently also well suited to a lot of other people!

The lead up to the single track was short. I knew the jump off the line would be important. So I lined up next to a girl who tends to win, and my plan was to stay on her wheel.

The whistle blew, and 20 seconds later, I was on to plan B....

I should have practiced the start. If I had, I would have known what gear to be in. As it was, I was in way too easy of a gear, and needed to shift up many times, causeing me to lose her wheel right away.

I'm noting a trend of losing races in the first 30 seconds...

Also the younger girls start at the same time as the 40+ women. We don't compete against each other, but we start together. This has caused me problems twice now. There is one little gal imparticular who is quite fast on smooth, straight lead outs. Then she hits the single track, gets nervous/sketchy and slows down.

She managed to hit the single track 2 in front of me, and immediately slowed down causing a gap between the ladies in front of her, and everyone she beat to the ST.

There was a bit of yelling going on, and we finally managed to pass her a minute or two later. By this time, the lead group was no where in sight. The trail was very narrow and heavily wooded, so passing was not easy. This didn't really set a good tone for the race for me. 5 minutes into the race I was in chase mode, and a little ticked off, trying to take back the gap.

I probably should have just settled into my pace, but instead I continued going out too hard. I usually try to have the first 25% of a race feel fairly easy (after the start). Not this time. I was going out full speed ahead. So.... as you can probably guess, I pretty much blew up by mile 4. This made the last half of the race a suffer-fest for me.

I did pass quite a few people from other cats/classes, which is always encouraging. Is it bad that I take a little bit of secret joy from passing guys who started way before I did? If I saw someone ahead, I chased them down hoping they were someone in my cat. No such luck, though.

At mile 4 there is a nice swoopy rythym section through the woods that I really enjoy. It took till this point for me to finally settle in.

Going out so hard, and feeling stressed the whole time trying to make up a gap caused me some physical issues. Mainly, my left hand went numb. Near the end of the race it was completely numb and painful, even though I tried to take every chance I had to shake it out and return the blood flow. I'm not sure if it was just me stressing, so much cornering, or new gloves, but I've never had that much trouble with my hands before. It was very distracting, and definately took away from my focus and concentration. I need to figure out what caused that and cure it ASAP.

In the last 2 miles I passed two more guys who decided I was a nice wheel to follow. At first it made me nervous that I shouldn't have passed them, and they would just need to pass me now, but they were content to sit on my wheel. This helped me go a bit faster, I'm sure.

I still managed to finish strong and sprint across the line. The finish was quite interesting... the finish line was about 30 yards beyond a sand volleyball court. So everyone sprints out of the single track into a pit of sand and fishtails like crazy. Quite entertaining for spectators. I did swerve a good bit, but maintained control, and used the technique I learned from Betterride to try to give my rear wheel the most traction, and just not try to change direction in the sand.

I finished a disapointing 5th out of 12.

Only disapointing becuase I really wanted 3rd or better.

The good part, though is that I have cut my deficit to the leader in half from the start of the season. Where I was coming in 15 minutes behind the winners, yesterday I was only 8 minutes behind. I'll call that progress and take it!