Well, I managed to completely burn myself out. I kept trying to get it together and just ended up stressing myself out. So I took a couple months off from racing, road my bike for fun and enjoyed some mellow time.
About six weeks ago I got back on a training program, and signed up for a cross country (XC) mountain bike race. Well, I didn't have an mtb to do it on, so I set up one of my cross bikes and headed out to the race. It was the TBF Racing Kick Start race. I love the course and the guys that put it on are just great. I've done a bunch of their races over the last eight or so years and have always enjoyed racing with them. This time proved to be no different.
Being a low key event held in late January on a drizzly Sunday there weren't a ton of racers out there. I managed to get the hole shot (thank you CX for teaching me how to start fast) and held the lead for about one mile. I was about third at the top of the first climb, 2 miles in, but my legs were burning. I guess a ten minute warm up for my first race in over two months wasn't enough. Oh well. I was a little rusty on my bike handling and made a few fumbles here and there.
About halfway through the lap I got hung up on some rocks and came to a complete stop. This would've been fine, if someone hadn't run into the back of me. Luckily no one was injured so I started racing again.
Halfway through lap two I started to question my fitness and motivation. Did I want to do the third and final lap? Did I have enough water? Did I have the fitness? Coming through the turn around for the final lap a guy behind me made an astute observation.
"Dude, your rear wheel is f*d."
I looked back to see that indeed it was. Well, that ended my race. I didn't feel comfortable risking my wheel collapsing on a rocky descent. So I pulled out. Covered in sand and mud, legs in pain, I rolled back to the start/finish to let the promoter know I wasn't going to finish.
My first race back, a DNF (Did Not Finish). But I was happy. I had had fun, and lots of it.
