Monday, July 20, 2009

Breck B-32 Race Report

I guess since I am riding and racing and adventuring now and again I should probably start writing again. What better way to start than with the one race I planned on doing this year, the Breckenridge B-32 race. Last weekend I did the 6 hour race at Levis-Trow and struggled with breathing and heart rate but the legs felt good. Wasn't sure what to expect at 9000 feet (starting elevation) but thought I'd give it a shot.

We got to Breck on Saturday morning after spending the past two nights (and one day) in the front range. Registered and chilled out. The race was a mass start heading out of Breck into the back and high country. I got dropped (as did all but 4 riders) on the neutral roll-out despite starting out front and entered the first singletrack in the top half or so. Not too bad. I faded a touch getting used to the many miles of uphill singletrack (it wasn't until after mile 6 that I actually coasted for the first time.) But once I got warmed up and ready I really started to move on up, passing quite a few people. Once we hit the downhill singletrack I was passing people left and right and even more so when we hit the double track decent. We had two long double track decents and I was just getting into race mode (worrying about my result) when *poof* flat tire. What a bummer. I changed the flat ok but it blew out again right away. Race over.

Or was it? I walked for a mile and a half down the dirt road trying to hitchhike back to town but no luck. I did have one more tube in my camelback but no way to inflate it. I finally walked all the way to the Aid station but they had no pump either. Finally I see a trailhead down the road and walked down there. Some hippy had a mini pump and it took us a good 10 minutes to figure out how to work it. Once we did I got it up to about 30PSI. Instead of riding it back into Breck I decided after an hour I might as well ride the race course out, so much for quitting! Getting back in the race started with a 2500ft climb. Brutal. But I must've climbed it ok (I passed two on the way up) because on the decent on the Colorado Trail I passed at least 15 people! For the rest of the race I would pass about a person every 3 minutes. At mile 30 I was excited to be done, an hour after I told Jess I probably would be. And then the road turned. Up. Steep and long. 900ft of vertical when I thought we were done with that. The 32 mile race turned well over 35 miles. But finally I entered the switchbacks of Carter Park and before I knew it I was eating watermelon and then checking into the condo. Before we left it showed I was 8th place out of 13 people in my age. Not too bad. I think I would've been in the top 5 for sure but no way would I have made the podium. I felt pretty good despite it all even though the result wasn't there. I guess that's it for my racing season (you never know though).

Our friends got into town afterwards so Empire Burger was the recovery ticket! Thanks for reading!