This past Sunday was the second last Ocup of the season at Kelso Conservation in Milton. I had spent enough time riding the course to be super comfortable with it and felt pretty good about it early in the week. I spent the majority of the week doin very short rides and getting as much rest as possible with a lot of stretching/rolling. I went up Saturday for another pre ride which had the official course marked (note to self check out the pre ride times first, the trail running series was on and I ended up having to go back later). I was a little surprised with. Some of the changes with the course but after doubling back a couple times I had all of my lines figured out with no problems. I was also surprised with how the course was now just over 10km a lap, I knew this was because Kelso is super fast but it still semmed fairly long. I was happy with the extra rock gardens thrown into the race and the extra climbing as it made the course that much better.
I woke up on Sunday feeling extremely rested and recovered and the legs felt really fresh, probably the best they've felt in a really long time. I took a look outside and saw how hard it was raining and started thinking about the course. I knew that the trails were super hard packed and wouldn't absorb much water so the surface would be full of water and really slick. I knew the rock gardebs well enough to be able to hit them with speed in the rain but I wasn't sure how slick they would be either.
I had a great breakfast and drank a lot heading out to Kelso. Got to Kelso to hear that it just stopped pouring rain and to see all the racers that were full of mud from the earlier races. It started to get sunny as I signed up and got everything set up. With the humidity and all it got super hot really fast. I started warming up and it was now really sunny and turning into a nice day.
I got to the start pen and was sitting around the back row which was fine since my plan was to start off slower and slowy ramp it up over the 5 laps. I started up the climb at a decent pace and headed into the single track around 28th or so place, quite a bit further back from where I wanted to be but I knew it was a long race and everyone always kills it up the first climb and then needs to spin it out at the top. I was feeling good along the single track and through the rock gardens. It was really slick and in one rock garden my rear tire got popped up and out to the right and hit a rock pretty good. It didn't slow me down at all but I thought I'd taken out my rear derailleur, but kept on rolling and everything was still working fine. It was super hot and humid and I'd finish my full bottle by the end of the lap. I passed a few riders each lap and kept everything super smooth and consistent. By the start of the 4th lap I could start feeling cramps coming on in my lower quads, but they were mild and were manageable. I was in no mans land on the 4th lap as I was slowly catching a group of 3 ahead of me and had made a big gap on anyone behind me. Mark was giving me my splits to the 15th placed guy every lap so I knew I was on pace to catch them on the last lap. At the start of the 5th lap I caught the group of 3 on some double track and passed them. I made a solid 35 second or so gap on them and could see Tim, the 12th ace rider around every corner and was gaining on him pretty quickly.
Then it all went bad, at about 46km. I got really bad chills, not the usual "o I'm a little dehydrated" type chills, these were full on I'm friggin cold and need a jacket kind of chills. I started getting really dizzy and couldn't focus on the trail I was on. My power dropped right off and I was barely able to keep on the trail. At this point I lost sight of the 12th place guy and the trio that I had passed earlier eventually caught back up and passed me. I couldn't do anything but watch them ride away, it sucked. A lot. I put it in damage control and just wanted to finish the race and get through the remaining rock gardens. They were scary, when I hit the last one after the feed zone I didn't even know where I was headed I just pointed my bike between the trees and went. I almost crashed and had to put my foot down. Eventually I crossed the line, good for 16th place. I felt like I was going to pass out, I waved off the chocolate milk in favor of my post ride recovery drink and spun around a bit. I was downing water all night and didn't feel better until about 9PM that evening.
Overall I'm extremely happy with the race. Not as much with the end results but really happy with how I rode. I paced myself smartly for the whole race, I felt I rode the technical sections super smoothly and I stuck to the race plan regardless of my placing throughout the race. If I would've avoided hitting the wall with about 5km to go it was looking like a top 12 finish. My lap times we're pretty consistent at about 26mins and change and my last one shot up to 28. If I had finished strong then I should've had that lap to under 26mins which would've been good for 12 spot. Considering that I haven't done a race in about a month and a half, I was impressed with my fitness and how it all went.
Talking to Mark afterwards we figured out why I hit the wall. I started the race lightly dehydrated, when I got to Kelso I was so worried about getting everything set up that I stopped drinking. It was hot from the time I got there so I was sweating quite a bit. I did a 25min warmup on the trainer so no wind was blowing byme and I barely even went through half my bottle. Since the race was so hot and I started it dehydrated, it only took about 4 laps until it put me in the red. In hind sight I should've drank right up until the start so that way as the race progressed I would've only been mildly dehydrated and not in the red. I've had the feeling of bonking before, where you just run out of fitness. This was definitely not it, so at least I can fix it for next time.
I'll be doing a core workout tonight, first time back at the gym in over a week so it'l be nice to get back. Thursday I'll be at Kelso for a shorter easy ride and I'll probably run through the rock gardens a bunch of times. Friday I'll be back at the gym and the to sleep early as I'll be heading up to Nordic Highlans on Saturday for the provncials course pre ride and a tough training ride. I missed the Kelso race last night as I needed another day of recovery so I just spun it out on my road bike.
All for now, I'm looking forward to these next few weeks to get some good training in for provincials.
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