June Update from Adam Craig, Racing into Shape! And having a good time...
I moved to Oregon because the weather, while still seasonal, is a bit more workable that Maine.
After taking full advantage of the training and competitive spoils of Oregon I figured it'd make sense to have the final exam take place a bit closer to home. The Subaru Cup in Mt. Morris, Wisconsin was round four of the 2010 Pro XCT and seemed like a good place to see how far I've come in the last month, since it was at least most of the way back to my home state of Maine...
There's lots of pictures and videos from the last month. Enjoy.
Return on the Jedi
Last weekend was the Return on the Jedi, held outside Grant's Pass in the Coast Mountains of Southwestern Oregon. I'd heard good things about the race from some folks but after a weekend of kickin' it in Timmy's Van at Sam Brown Campground, Brig and I agreed that our buddies had done us a disservice by not insisting that we check it out sooner. Saturday was a double header of Morning Short Track and Afternoon Super D. To me this meant not one but two chances for someone saying GO in the vicinity of a bunch of dudes to result in a good solid workout. Turns out both of the GO's were a prompt for both exercise and entertainment.
The short track was on a mile or so loop around the campground that included a solid stream crossing and a fun, muddy, flowing (with both water and, um, flow) singletrack descent. Brig, Timmy and I were joined by local shredder Bear Perrin for the opening. We proceeded to spray each other with water in the stream and generally roost around. Attacking and countering is something that's hard to simulate but easy to do with just a few quick guys in the mix. Eventually I lost 'em and chalked up the first win of the 2010. Comeback in full swing? We'll see...
After a bit of snoozing and watching South Park in the Westfalia it was time to load up the shuttle and head up (and up) for the Super D start. We'd pre-ridden the lower part of the course in the morning, but the top few miles of fireroad was a mystery. Good thing I had a couple dozen dudes to follow after walking the Lemans start... Timmy made me wear my knee brace (he's smart) and gave explicit instructions to NOT RUN. This meant I got to see way more crashes and puddle splashes, upping the entertainment factor for sure... Eventually it was only Timmy's splashes that I was enjoying, and they were coming fast and dangerous on a surface that had deteriorated to more creek than road. We eventually settled in to pinning it down drifty gravel corners and pedaling really fast. Then I blew the turn into the Jedi Trail and Timmy squeezed by. Thanks, that's really great... He led the rest of the delicious way to the finish, winning by a few seconds instead of getting stuffed in front of the photographers by me...
More south park and sleeping and suddenly it was 9am and time to start the "Epic Loop XC". I don't use Epic lightly so was curious to see just how it applied in this instance. Turns out they're spot on in those hills. Huge climbs followed by backwoods singletrack descents followed by more huge singletrack climbs before finally finishing on the Jedi Trail once again. Brig and I rode with some other fast guys initially, figuring there was no reason to really pin it just yet. Eventually he got antsy and made a move, which I followed and started getting a good solid race pace established. A few navigational stops were sufficient to keep the lead four sort of together throughout the 30 miles but I made sure to get a gap again after each turnaround. It was nice to have people to ride with and Brig was keeping me honest to the very end. Which came after what we thought would be a couple mile river-grade cruise but was in all actuality a 2-mile GRUNT up to a saddle. Oops. The morning showers had tapered off as I ripped down the Jedi for the last time, winning my first proper XC race of the year. Which happened to be a pretty damn nice ride too...
Mid-Day barbecue and awards ended our weekend in the hills and we headed home. Brig (a coach with Bart Bowen at the Rebound Sports Performance Lab) was keen to download my SRM power data from the weekend and try to learn a bit about the types of efforts put forth during a MTB race. Turns out there's a lot of effort and I'm kind of getting in shape. We'll see how that improves...
