The SERC # 4 was held at the Ocoee recreational site just outside of Ducktown Tennessee. Same place the 1996 Olympics were held for White water Kayak.
The course for the weekend was super fast with us riding 53km in 2hr 11min for an average speed of 24km/hr pretty quick for so much single track and climbing! We started off heading up a climb and we pretty much climbed for the next thirty minutes before descending on a fravel road for about a km before hitting some more downhill singletrack and finishing the lap with another km on the road. So of the start there was a group of five of us who were together for the first bit of the climb which eventually went down to three of us Matt Hadley, Charles Pendre and myself. I honestly wasn't feeling the strongest on the climbs but was going to try and hang on for as long as possible. I got dropped about 15min in when Charles upped the tempo a little and I just tried to keep them within range. on the descent I would make time and then try and hold it and on the section of road before the start of the second lap I was able to bridge up to the two of them. I probably went a little hard to bridge up to them. Once we hit the start of the climb Matt went to the front and slowly rode away and me thinking (or not thinking) that we were about to hit the single track attacked and couldn't hold it and also realized there was still another section of climbing to do before the first downhill. So no more group of us and there was also a fourth guy slowly closing the gap on me. The third lap I rode as hard as possibel to try and keep my third position and every once in a while could see Charles so was also motivated thinking if I could catch Charles and hold of the guy chasing me I could be 2nd. I didn't hold of the Robert Marrion (the guy chasing) and ended up riding on his wheel until the gravel road descent but I did catch Charles which put me into 3rd at the end of the day.
I have also been having some troubles with Allergies the past week where my throat was super sore and it made it hard to swallow food or water( I did the race on 1 bottle and no food or gels). But it is much better today and I have almost no sore throat at all. There was a flower in bloom in Georgia which I think was really bothering me.
Next race is Bromont!
Oh ya the cape is because I didn't know what else to do with a 10ft Schwalbe banner
2 comments:
Congrats on Third.
Hopefully your throat will feel much better in the next couple of days - be sure to get it checked out if you have more troubles with it.
Good luck on starting the Canada Cup.
awesome banner, i wonder who took that great picture.... i'm glad you guys got to stay here!! jg
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