Tom's Riding Journal

Huntsville Area

I used to race mountain bikes a lot from 1987 to 1991. Since 1991 I think I’ve done five mountain bike races. The Huntsville Classic 2004 was one of the five.

It had rained heavily the night before so the usually sandy course was nicely packed down. The starting gun sounded at about 9 am for my group (sport 40 –45) and we sprinted for the single track. As soon as we hit it someone crashed in front of me laying his bike across the trail. I snaked past the pile-up as everyone behind me got jammed up. That was a lucky break for me because it kept the pressure off my back so I could concentrate on he riders ahead of me. As soon as we hit the first rooty climb another rider crashed in front of me and again I slipped by leaving a couple of riders stalled. That climb put me in anaerobic hell but fortunately dumped onto a dirt road, which allowed me to recover. The thing I hate about racing is that you have long moments of extreme pain and discomfort. You climb onto a psychological rollercoaster where you ride through tem minutes of hell and misery asking yourself why you decided to do this again; then the terrain changes and you recover and feel elated .You ‘re confident again and start riding to win. That elation dies quickly as you hit another hill or bog down in a difficult section that throws you back into extreme anaerobic effort. I went back and forth like that for the entire hour and a half it took me to complete the race. Right before the finish is the biggest climb on the course and I hammered up it using all I had left .At the top you have a couple hundred yards of fast rolling semi-paved trail where I began to really haul ass in an effort to shave some seconds off my time. I felt great for about a minute and then again the trail began gentle climb which in my state of exhaustion was all it took to hurl me back into misery and despair as I actually thought I might be completely spent with just 50 yards left in the race. However that was a fleeting thought and I just put my head down in concentrated effort and called on the last of my reserve energy to slowly roll across the finish line. After that I felt great again because it was over and I was satisfied with the sixth place finish. I guess I’ll do the upcoming Double Lake race I got a little momentum now and I’d hate to squander it.