Stony Marathon XC - 2009

It's always hard to figure out what to write about this race... it's so long and so much stuff happens. So, here we go, the 2009 edition Stony Marathon XC race:

My plan was to get up around 6am on Saturday to eat, finish packing, etc. My daughter decided that she had a better idea... how about wake Dad up at 4:15am, try to sleep in a chair for a while, and then finally give up and stay up around 5:45am? I ended up getting about 6.5 hours of sleep the night before the race... sweet.

I enlisted my dad to help me at the race, handing up water bottles every lap. This was the first time I'd done it (nothing like trying a new hydration strategy at a 40+ mile race), and it actually worked really well. I probably drank more water than I would have with the Camelbak. I'm not sure that I'm ready to switch to bottles for all races, but there are lots of open sections at Stony that make it easy to drink from a bottle.

My strategy for the race was to go out reasonably hard and try to build up a gap (and clear traffic) until we hit The Pines; then, just a steady pace after that. I also wanted to get myself a little more fired up before the race.

It worked pretty well, I think. At least, by the time I hit the long stretches of singletrack, there was plenty of space for me to pass and others to pass me. I ended up having a little crash right at the end of the Pines. It was a weird crash; I'd gotten through all of the slick spots, and my front tire slid out over a very small root in a nearly straight section of trail. The rest of the lap went OK; my improvement in riding was pretty obvious in the Roller Coaster section of trail. I still wasn't great everywhere, but I could open up gaps on people just by really nailing the corners. That's definitely a first.

The second lap was also pretty decent. The only problem I ran into was another crash; this time in the Roller Coaster. I had a couple guys behind me and I was pushing a little harder than normal. I've actually crashed in this exact same spot in the exact same way before... so much for learning from my mistakes. It seemed like the second crash took a little of my aggressiveness away.

No crashes on the third lap, but I was starting to get tired. I was also mostly riding by myself on this lap. At the top of the climb to Mt. Sheldon, I stopped for a few seconds to help a woman find a shortcut back to the start/finish area. At first, I didn't give a very clear answer when she asked; then I took a closer look at her and saw that her face was half-covered in blood. Then I really stopped to make sure I gave decent directions and that she felt OK to make it back.

The other thing that happened on the third lap was that my legs started to cramp on the long climb near the end. It's the first time that's ever happened to me during a bike race. Not a good feeling! There are a whole lot of possibilities for the cause, so I'm not really sure why it happened.

I was by myself for most of the fourth lap also. The Elite riders started lapping me once I got to the Pines. This is actually one of the ways I've been judging my performance at this race. How soon do the Elites start lapping me? Every year, I've pushed it back farther and farther. I managed to ride most of the lap at a level that kept me from cramping, but it seemed like I was close to it on every climb. I had a crash on this lap too... my front tire slipped on the edge of a rut climbing up Mt. Sheldon. When I fell, my calf hit a log, which immediately caused it to cramp. Anyway, I finished out the lap and the race OK after that.

Once I finished, I felt like I'd done pretty well, but I wasn't sure how I placed. It's so hard to keep track of who's who when you're passing, being passed, etc and there are so many classes racing at once. I stood near the finish line for quite a while and didn't see anyone from my class come through (other people in my wave though). I started thinking maybe I hadn't done so well.
As it turned out, I did do OK. I finished 6th out of 14 in my class, and I was only 30 seconds or so out of 5th place. The gap behind me was huge though, about 13 minutes back to 7th place, which is why I wasn't seeing anyone come through.

Even looking back on it, I'm pretty happy with my race. I felt like I worked really hard and executed the strategy that I planned. It was a hot day, and a long, hard race. About half the guys in my club DNF'd.

My only disappointment is that my lap times, in particular the first lap, weren't a little faster. I'd need to pick up another 2 minutes per lap (~4%) to be competitive with the top Sport guys in my age group, and another couple minutes to match my friends in the Expert class. The thing I did notice is that I generally slowed down less per lap than most of the other guys in my class. I'm not completely sure, but I'm going to put most of this down to fitness, although I know I could still go faster in parts the singletrack. Most of these guys have been training since late Winter / early Spring. With my knee injury this year, I've really only been at it since May, and I've hardly done any high-intensity work.

Last thing; here's a picture that Andrea took. Not the best picture of me (and you can see I have too much tension in my shoulders), but I like the look on my face. Compare that to some of the Ruby pictures, and it's obvious that I was pushing myself harder here.