Summer Series Race Report Anne Springs: Bad

I was thinking of calling it “embarrassing” or “terrible” but it was quite that bad, it was just BAD.  This was the first summer series race at Anne Springs (which I’ve ridden quite a bit over the last couple years).  It was good to have some of the guys that haven’t been to as many of the summer series races at the race (Robert Fish, Robert Mobley and Chris Audet). 

Got a good start (it’s about time) and entered the woods 2nd, rode in second pretty comfortably for the first 10 minutes or so, we were going fast, but I felt good.  Unfortunately I pushed my front tire too hard into a sandy turn, it washed out and I went down, as crashes go it was as innocent as possible, but I did lose a few places as a result.  Got back on and got going again, unfortunately shortly thereafter I was going uphill and hit a root with my front tire wrong and went down, again incredibly innocent, but still it meant I had to run to the top of the hill remount and get started again.  At this point the guys at the front of the race had pulled away a bit, not too bad (I still have over two laps to pull them back in), but I was playing catch up. From then on I don’t remember exactly everything that happened or the order that it happened in, but it just didn’t go well.  There is a spot where the trail splits and you can either go right or left, both the first and second lap I went to the right, which was a much slower and more difficult line.  I also crashed going through one of the really technical sections, got thrown off the bike, and my water bottle that had all my Infinit nutrition came out, only problem:  I didn’t realize the bottle had fallen out for about 5 minutes.  So no nutrition, no electrolytes for the last 50 minutes or so of the race, which might not have been so bad, but it was 90 degrees. . .not a good situation.  I don’t even remember all the other things that went wrong, but it was just a bad race all around.

Until about noon Thursday (the next day) I was pretty down on myself and the race.  But after a little time to think about it and reflect I realized that it was a bad race, nothing more nothing less.  I’m the same rider that I was a few weeks ago when I won at Rennassaince, then was racing for the win at the Riverfront Classic and Fisher Farms.  My fitness didn’t go down the toilet in the last couple weeks (I’ve had some of the best workouts of my life the last few weeks) and my bike handling hasn’t reverted back to what it was 2 or 3 years ago when I was bad at handling the bike.  It just wasn’t a good race, I made mistakes that cost me time and places, but it doesn’t mean that I’m a bad rider. 

Congratulations to Robert Fish who won the expert race (he's come back from a number of pretty big injuries over the last 10 months),  Daniel Lenis 2nd in Sport 19-34, Omar Reese (rocking the Dickie shorts) 2nd Beginner 36+, Rebecca Bubp 3rd in Sport Women's, and Ty Gibbs 2nd in Juniors 8-13.

Next up:  North Meck then going to Richmond to try and qualify for Xterra Worlds