Hi everyone! I just wanted to share my happy news.
After training and training, I decided to actually test myself against others and sign up for a mountain bike race. It was difficult for me to decide which category; I thought I was strong enough for category 1, too strong for category 3. So I figured category 2 open would be the best. I also didn’t want to come across as “That guy that never raced and signed up for category 1 and got smoked”.
I made a bit of a mess of the start, but my training kicked in and I just settled into a VO2 max effort to get to the front. I knew a singletrack climb was coming up and I wanted to be able to stretch my legs.
It worked. I dropped the rest, started catching cat 1 riders, and continued on through the race. It was very short… only 2 laps that were 5.5 miles each. I caught more and more cat 1 racers throughout (They had three laps). I took it easy on the last section behind some cat 1 guys and I didnt want to mess up their race. Looking at the finish times, I was lucky that the second place guy did not catch me but it worked out well.
Honestly, without trainerroad training this would never have been possible. I listen to all of the podcasts, follow my AT plan, and stay consistent. It works.
Thanks for reading!
Some quick kids there for sure. But some of the age group guys were pretty fast as well. Looking at the results a little deeper, I was 1/76 in category 2.