Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!!! A day that started out iffy at best (left without my hydration pack), turned out to be a great day of racing for me. My first win of the season came at my last mountain bike race of the season…Riedlbauers Round Top Rally: NYS MTB Series Finale.
I started the day realizing that I showed up to the race without my hydration pack and without my Hammer Nutrion Heed. I had one small bottle of plain water that I drank prior to the start. It wasn’t hot out, so I figured…if I can race a 45 minute cyclocross race without drink, I can race this race without drink. And this is a course that I love to just hammer through, so more than likely I wouldn’t have drank much during the race anyway.
This is another race course that suits my mountain bike strengths. Singletrack! Fast, flowing, semi-technical singletrack. I got a good start for a change and was in third entering the woods. Within the next 1/4 mile or so, I was in the lead for good and never looked back. Ok, so I looked back going into the second lap to see how close 2nd place was. I didn’t see him. However, I was having so much fun I didn’t let up until I had about one mile to go. I kept hammering through the singletrack with much of it in the big ring. I felt good. Today’s race was the best I have felt all season. I’m sure leading from nearly start to finish had a lot to do with that.
So, 1st place today, ~46 seconds ahead of 2nd. I also finished 2nd overall (age/category) in the series with 243 points, 57 points back.
Thank you to Hammer Nutrition, Duro Tire, Rudy Projuct and TrFlow Lubes for a solid MTB Season! Now it’s off to cyclocross season.
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