Sunset Series Race 1

Another season of racing at Camp Fortune has started. I have been doing some training with a coach since Christmas. I have been anxious to see if it has actually been working and was looking forward to this first race. I have had a tough winter health wise as I just became a type 1 diabetic, which started out as a type 2 a couple years ago. Spent most of winter and spring finding a proper insulin regime and diet that keeps my blood sugar stable. Been fighting lots of colds during the winter and seemed like one week hard training and a week recovering. Bit frustrating to say the least .....

Got to the hill bit early as I know there can get to be a bit of a line up on registration day.
All went well and I was actually surprised that there were only something like 3 cars in the lot. I was wondering if it was even a race day! Parked and shortly after had a couple friends pull up beside and we all chatted while getting ready to warm up.

For a warm up I did about 10 easy minutes in the lot where it is fairly flat. After this I decided to do the end loop, which takes about 5 minutes, to see if they left in the same parts as last year. Glad I did as there were some minor changes but all was clear once they taped up the lines.
This section has a short steep climp and a fast technical twisty, rocky and very rooty section down through the trees. Normally the technical sections are my stronger suit. At first I was going slow and really felt nervous going through here. Decided to do a few more easy laps of this section and was joined on my last lap by a friend. He went through fairly fast and I went behind him. Felt much better at speed :) Had me worried before that that I totally lost my confidence.

I had bought a tubeless wheelset last fall and this would be my first XC MTB race on them. I had done a few group rides on them and I was clearing just about everything a lot easier than what I remember inthe past. Tires are UST Mountain King 2.2. I checked pressure after the race and was at approx. 18 psi F/R according to 2 guages. Course is fairly rough and saw lots of flats. Very happy to say that I was not one of them this year, while I DNF 4 of 7 races last year with flats. No flats and I pretty much let r go on the rough sections :)

The course was pretty dry and the MK's hooked up really well. The knobs are not that deep and did get a bit of the front sliding slightly on some of the loose loamy parts of the forest and on the small loose gravel sections. I have never been a fan of the gravel but the sliding was not violent and easily kept in check with some feathering of the brakes :) Had great grip on rocks and roots. As I said was dry so remains to be seen.

Sorry for being so long winded.

The race. On the start strait (gravel road) I started around 1/3rd up in the pack but people started passing me as it slowly started to climb. After about one minute or so of this you turn 90 degrees and climb the gravel access road. Pretty steep. If I recall around 18% at some points. Just before the turn up I was a little disappointed with my pace and people pulling ahead but I stopped and reversed the slide as it got steeper, albeit not by much.
After this I relaxed a bit as I had a bit of a gap on the people behind me and no use hammering to stay on the small group ahead because is fast and hard to pass and after a minute you enter the woods and a lot of people have trouble in the narrow steep technical forest section and is usually the first big bottle neck. Timed it perfect. Got into section with two people pushing, but left enough room for me and no one caught me from behind.
After this is the second long climb to the top. I think I went a bit to hard on this climb. Passed a buddy here that passed me earlier on before the first climb.  Near the top of climb there is 3 steep technical sections and at the last one I was hurting a bit and took the easier line and my buddy took the harder inside line and passed me. I never usually do this. Typically I am faster on the downhill so I should have put in the 10 seconds of effort to stay in front before the downhill. Won't do this again. I did get past him about 1/2 way down on another rough section that splits in two. I was really hurting and my buddy passed me somewhere past the start line before the steep section back up the hill. I was really hurting and coughing a bit from the effort. This stupid cough that I can't shake....
So the climb back to the top (lap 2) was pretty rough. A couple guys were creeping up on me just at the top so this time I put the little effort to make sure I was first on the decent.
I started to finally feel not to bad near the end of the 2nd lap. On the last little climb on the part that I had practiced before the race you look down over the start/finish, which according to the GPS is around 1 min 50 secs and 1/2 km, and saw another teammate just starting the last lap.
I was now back into some sort of groove and feeling not too bad into the 3rd and final lap. The first steep climb was still no picnic. Once onto the second climb for the last time I saw my teammate and he became my carrot. I had a pretty good decent and closed up the gap by the bottom. Two times I was trying to calculate a pass and messed up and had to put a foot down. He was looking pretty gassed and I felt I had a good sprint left and easily got past on the bottom little flat section to the finish.
Race one was over and two of my teammates that I was hoping to best had already been at the finish for a couple minutes.
My un-official lap times taken from my GPS show ....
1.) 21:19
2.) 25:02
3.) 23:59
For years past at this course I tend to slow 1 minute per lap almost on the money. I would really be happy if I could ride 3 sub 22 minute laps which would be about 2 minutes faster than my best race.

I would have liked to have done better but I guess considering all that is gong on health wise I am happy to be able to get out there and race and have fun with it :)
Cheers,
Paul