Monday, August 5, 2013

Tune-Up

This past weekend was a great chance for me to relax, enjoy, and tune-up for the Epic this coming weekend. Rest, relaxing, and stress free situations are under appreciated so anytime when I can combine all into a weekend its good all the way around.  I traveled with Erin down to Green Bay where we met up with my family Saturday morning to enjoy Packer Family Weekend. The event completely amazes me that 60,000 people come out to sit at a stadium and watch others practice their sport. The infatuation with these athletes and teams are incredible. It all starts at a young age too. The looks on my nephews faces when they walked into Lambeau was priceless.

Before we joined up for Family Night Erin and I pedaled our way around Green Bay over to the East side bike path through DePere. It was very busy being a beautiful Saturday morning but it made a great route to spin the legs, enjoy a ride and get a couple efforts in before a night of family fun and the next days WORS race. The best part was Erin's alertness when she spotted a coffee house downtown GB. We spun back around at the end of our ride and enjoyed incredible coffee and pastries that didn't blow you away with sweetness. The coffee and pastry combo was near perfection. 

In the past, the WORS Kewaskum Sunburst Showdown can be a bit of a bore. Held at a ski hill that runs you up and down and through open field single track it didn't really appeal to the true mountain biker. But this year they aimed to impress and they did a great job with a course redesign. Not knowing the course and coming in a little fatigued my goal was to conserve and stay top 10. The lead-out line was quite long and going into the first single track we were still a good size group. A bobble by a lead rider ahead placed a gap between the front 5 or so and back. Not wanting to dig too deep I decided not to chase back on. I felt like maybe I could have but stuck to the conservative plan I went in with. Approaching lap 2 my bike had a some ghost shifting which was caused by a loose rear skewer. A quick stop and I chased back onto Isaac and Justin.

Most of the race I allowed them to do the pace making and stayed comfortable. Justin put in an awesome lap 3/4 effort and he pulled back Corey. We rode the 3 of us until the final lap. We were also joined by Ted H. Between the 3 they put in a couple subtle final lap moves where I was content to just stay steady. I fought for the final piece of single track and popped in 3rd. Rode that to the finish for 9th place. 

All in all it was a good ride, race, and effort. I stuck to my plan, conserved energy for the up coming week, and felt good doing it. Now that the work is truly done it will be a lot of bike prep and body prep leading to my favorite weekend of the year. Until then :)  

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the link! It was great to see some of you guys at Iceman. Stay warm!

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