… Following a decent performance at Granogue, I decided to continue with the “no pressure, race for fun and race by my heart rate” at The Iron Hill Challenge.
Preregistration deadline day: The morning of, there was one person registered in my class and by mid-day, two people which had me leaning towards not racing, and joining a group ride in North Jersey instead. As the registration deadline approached, to my surprise, all the regulars registered including the top three people, which was motivating. I texted Cameron letting him know I was thinking about racing and his response was what sealed the deal for me. He wanted to race as well and immediately following his response; I went on bikereg and signed us up.
Race day…
The morning was smooth aside from me forgetting my coffee and I burned a half hour going back to get it.
Pre-ride… I raced this place before and after looking at the course map, I noticed a few variations but nothing too crazy. I took a quick roll through the staging area and the first ten minutes of the course then came back around to pick up Cameron so he could see it as well. Warm up / pre-ride was roughly 30 minutes, which gave me a couple minutes before they called us to staging. Overall feelings were pretty good, relaxed and ready to have some fun.
The Start… The 13? 12? of us lined up and we were chatting it up when I noticed the pros sprinting away… I was like – Oh wow, we are about to do this! The countdown happened and we took off, nice easy pace, I settled in mid pack behind Ryan who was behind the usual top three guys who were behind a guy I’ve never seen before who was off the front.
We made our way to the gravel road section and I pace lined / drafted up to Ryan’s wheel and then veered right and put in an effort to get up near the front of the pack with Michael Groves, Matt Vahey and Mark Smolko. That was exactly where I was hoping I would be before entering the single-track.
Ten minutes in to lap one, I’m was following Mark and holding his pace as Ryan was right behind me… third, fourth, fifth. As we entered in to the lap’s first chunky section, my eyes were switching focus from looking at the rocks, picking lines and keeping an eye on Mark, I accidentally clipped my handlebar on a small sapling tree I overlooked and it sent me off my bike and on to some rocks – UGH…. Ryan passed, Mark pulled away. I quickly collected myself back up and hammered it to get back to Ryan. It took me another 10 minutes to get to Ryan and settle in to his pace. Mark was slowly creeping out of sight. For the remainder of lap one, I managed my efforts to match Ryan’s pace while keeping my heart rate where it should be. I could tell by watching Ryan’s movements and behavior that he was pushing much harder than I was and I knew I would be able to make a pass and make it stick. As we made our way through the start / finish area, Ryan pulled over to swap bottles and I made the pass – fourth.
Going in to lap two I was feeling good, relaxed, within my means… Ryan caught back up to me quickly and once we hit that gravel road, I laid down a hard effort for a few minutes all the way to the first switchback downhill. I opened up a solid gap and when I looked back, I could not see Ryan. I went through the next section, where I fell on lap one, super conservative and when I made it to the bottom, I see Ryan creeping up on me.
As we made our way to the first big climb of the lap, I put in another big effort all the way up the climb and that was the last time I saw Ryan.
Cool shot provided by Paul Freeman
With roughly less than two miles to go in lap two, I saw Matt Vahey ahead stalled out. He was roughly 10 seconds ahead of me and when the course turned back on itself, he caught a glimpse of me and in a matter of minutes, he was gone. At that moment, I decided rather than try to push and catch him, I stuck to my pace.
Lap three – I made my way through the start / finish area and Cameron was ready with the bottle hand-up.
The plan for lap three was to leave it all out there. I pushed all the climbs, tried to go faster in all the other stuff. That said, with roughly two miles to go, I was sloppy in a tech section and dabbed in a rock garden that forced me off the bike and I had to walk the rest. As I tried to remount, I heard and felt a grinding in my gears, looked back and see a small stick jammed in the derailleur and cassette. I jumped back off the bike, tried to clear it and in that moment I was passed by Jeff Thomas – UGH AGAIN! Where did he come from? I managed to clear the stick, remounted and began chasing. Jeff was just in view almost out of site and I pushed like hell to try to catch him.
Awesome pic by Paul Freeman’s wife
I managed to close the gap to roughly 10 seconds at the top of the mid lap climb and after that, he rode away from me never to be seen again until after I crossed the finish line… fifth.
Wrap up… It sucks I fell in the first lap, made a mistake in the rock garden followed by a slight mechanical which resulted in a fifth place finish but I’m not mad about it. I think if I had not made those mistakes, I would have finished fourth instead of fifth, which is not a big deal for me. In the grand scheme of things, on a perfect day, I may be able to battle for third. The top three people are on a level above me and I am cool with that. I enjoy being consistently in the next group of four, five, six. Maybe next year, a couple of those top people will upgrade and I could improve enough to be in a position to race for the win. This gives me motivation to improve while validating that I can have fun and be competitive when I need to.
On an even more positive note, Cameron raced and took second in his class.
While he was on the racecourse, I ran around looking for him and cheering him on.
I really enjoy doing this with him and I think the feeling is mutual. What was once my thing is turning in to our thing…? Maybe? Time will tell.
This may be the last XC race for us this year as our schedule will not allow us to race the H2H Point Peter Pounder or MASS Finals at Fair Hill, which bums me out. I feel like after a delayed race season due to weather and NICA coaching commitments, I am finally starting to get in to a good race groove. I am contemplating racing Bearscat 50 in September and possibly Erie 80 in October but that is too far out for me to make any kind of commitments. It makes me slightly sad to type that Iron Hill may be my last race of 2018…. The race itch is feeling too good when I scratch it.
Special thanks to Paul Freeman for always providing me with awesome pics for these posts.
Thanks for reading.
Mike Williams 