I was super excited about this race since I’ve never been to this course and I heard its technical (my favorite).
I arrived at the quit, sleepy state park early Saturday evening, jumped on the bike and went off for the pre-ride. It was beautiful weather, the course was in perfect shape and there were rocks and roots everywhere!!
I loved it and couldn’t stop smiling. I came through after one lap and decided to ride the first section again which turned into a whole lap since I was feeling so good!
Finished the preride, had my recovery meal with Tofurky and gave the bike a rinse with the Wicked Wash cleaner, set up the table and tent then settled in for the night.
Woke up around 630-7am from a decent night sleep. After checking in and setting out my Raw Revolution bars I started to do my warm up on the trainer. I always feel like I get a more solid warmup on the trainer than riding around.
Before I knew it, it was time to line up, got to the line and there were only a few regular faces the rest were locals.
My plan was to hit that single track first and just float over those rocks…
3. 2. 1… GO!
I clipped in and blasted out of there, almost missed the turn to the single track, hit every section and line perfect, with only a little bit of a mechanical and the familiar voices yelling at me.
It started to even out and I had a good lead, then of course the same turn I missed both times on the pre-ride I completely missed again but this time coming in way too fast. I rode through the course tape, jumped off and untangled the bike while a group of three guys pass.
I jumped back on and hopped on their wheel heading into the next single track section.
The pre-ride might have not taught me anything with that last turn but it definitely helped in a loose up hill that two had to dismount as I passed them putting me into 2nd. I rode his wheel and the other guys caught up with us.
We caught up with some of the women racers just as one fumbled in a rock garden stopping right in front of me an two guys rode around as we tried to get going again.
I got passed by Scott close to the finish of the first lap, putting me into 6th but I was gunning for him and could taste podium! I was getting tired from the course and heat that wasn’t there the day before and started to ride sloppy just as I finally came up on Scott, wiped out hard. I stopped for a minute to make sure he was ok and then bounced.
I’m now in 5th place, all I have to do is at least hold this place while trying to move up.
The 2nd lap I cleared everything with a lot of the ride being by myself. I unfortunately didn’t catch anyone but I also held my place.
I came through the finish line with a 5th place! Pretty stoked, best place so far in the series.
Tagged: bike race, clean bike, clean eating, dirty bike, endurance, giro, go vegan, mary's gone crackers, meat free athlete, mountain bike, mountain bike race, mtb, mtg racing, mtn bike race, no meat athlete, norba, panaracer, plant based athlete, plant based diet, plant fuel, plant powered, plants based, racing, raw revolution, singletrack, so delicious, stans notubes, team vega, tofurky, training, veg head, vegan, vegan athlete, Vegan Athlete Racing, vegan mountain biking, vegan mtb, vegan strong, wicked wash, xc racing
