Sure....
I race on a team here in NJ. We have a series called H2H that runs through all of the major venues in southern NY and northern NJ. The terrain is technical, rocky, hilly single track, some double track. The past two seasons I have done the entire series, and triathlons. There are 8 races, you must do 6 to score.
This season, I am focusing on Xterra off road tri's and doing fewer pure mt bike races. I raced on Sunday because it is a big one for our team. This is my least favorite venue.
We had a really small field on Sunday. Just 6 on the line. Lots of younger cat 3 and cat 2 girls out, but the "experienced" girls have not been showing up this year. We started last as usual. It was already 90 plus degrees when the gun went off.
I got the hole shot. The first section is a creek crossing and then uphill on a very rooty section, sharp hairpin turn and more roots. A fast, trecherous downhill and across a bridge.
This is where my main competition caught me. She is an excellent climber. The entire first half of the course is climbing, so I settled in, thinking...ok, if we can hang on for two hours we will go 1-2.
When we got to the downhill section of the course, she yelled back that I could pass, that she not very aggressive downhill. I said no, I will hang here.
We came around the end of lap one, I was right on her wheel, my teammates cheering for me.
I settled in again for lap two, but this time after the climbing I said screw it and passed her. I put my big wheel bike in the big chain ring and dropped the hammer. I came around the end of lap two out in front. More cheering!
By lap three, the heat was becoming a major factor. On laps one and two, I tried to climb in my small ring, stay out of the red, save some legs for lap 3.
I was just about delerious....literally talking myself through every turn, over every bridge, just hold on, you will be done soon.
She caught me with about 1/4 of the last lap to go. I got right back on her wheel and flew though the last 2 miles, crossing the line 5 secs behind.
It was pretty cool to pass someone that I respect and admire as a racer.
Better yet, the next person in our group to cross the line, was 13 mins behind!



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