1st Multisport Event of the Season was a Belly Flop!

I should have known things weren’t going to go good when on the morning of my first mtn. bike race ever, I was getting ready to ride off road for the first time in over 10 years. Since it wasn’t my best event, I really don’t want to spend too much time writing about it. I had wanted to get to the race site the evening before with enough time to ride the course, however by the time I figured out where the race started, it was getting too dark.

I spent the night sleeping in the back of my truck, or at least trying to. However, I woke up cold around 3am and didn’t sleep any more after that. I finally got up at 6am and once I got everything ready to race, I decided to try out the bike course. In the first 2 or 3 miles I rode, I fell about 5 times. It was single track trail with large rocks embeded in the trail. I probably had too much air in my tires, they were at 65psi, and they should have been around 50 or 45. I also think my seat my be a little too low. Bottom line, on the 5th fall I jammed my thumb and slightly re-injured my fragmented trapezium. That along with my bleeding and bruised shins were enough to make me decide this wasn’t looking like the best idea ever. Since I’m a decent runner, I knew I could be in the top 10% or so after the first run. So that also meant there would be a lot of better mtn. bikers behind me. I had a hard enough time riding the course when it was just me, I didn’t need to be out there in the middle of a race…

So I rode back to the race site, loaded my bike in the truck, and headed to the race start. I figured I would at least do the first two mile run and get a little something out of the whole trip.

Even the run didn’t go as well as I thought it would. The first 1/2 mile or so was on the road, I went out hard and was 4th when we got onto the trail. I probably went too hard and once we started going up and down some steep hills my legs felt like rubber. We came up to a creek crossing and after jumping across I tripped or my legs just gave out or something… anyways, I ended up doing a belly flop which pretty much summarized the whole experience.

Looking back, I wish I had done the ride. I should have run, taken a 10 or 15 minute break to let all the good riders get ahead of me, and then headed out just for the experience. Instead I took a shower and headed home…