I recently got the go ahead to start riding again from my physical therapist and started getting on the quad a couple of weeks ago. On one hand it felt great, on the other I felt a bit weeded just from lack of seat time.  I’ve been on my trainer/bicycle quit a bit, as well as doing a lot of other training to keep from slipping to far back during my shoulder rehab.  But as we all know too well, there is nothing that can replace seat time except for seat time.  How ever I have recently found a close 2nd.

I have been wanting to enter a XC Mt. Bike race for the last couple of years and recently heard that the Oregon State Series would be kicking off at a first time venue that is about 25 min. from the house.  So if that wasn’t convenient enough for me I don’t know what would be.  The reason  for wanting to do this is that I am always looking for ways to cross train, mainly to keep my program from getting stale as well as looking for and finding ways to better my program as a whole.  I have really enjoyed getting into road biking the last several years and have occasionally changed it up a bit with rides on my Mt. Bike, but all of my rides have been solo, so I never really got a feel for the sport until now.  So here is my story about how I followed up my first day on the quad in a couple of months.

When I got up on the Sunday morning of the event it was much different than a typical race day.  I had no idea what to expect nor did I have any great expectations for how I would do on this day.  After all I just stepped back about 10 years to being a first time amateur, only this time it was in a sport that I knew very little about.  Fortunately for me on this first time adventure the weather was perfect.  It was 33 degrees and raining like hell, which of course changed to a viscous hail as we were pulling out of the drive way.  My pit support crew, which consisted of my girlfriend Michelle let me know that I wasn’t required to race in this crap if I didn’t want to.  The thought of bagging the whole thing had crossed my mind, but I hadn’t been able to compete in a couple of months and at this point I really needed to dispose of some pent up energy.  Just to keep myself from having a last minute change of heart I quickly got signed up a soon as we arrived at the event.  I some how drew the number “338″ and was immediately compelled to toss a back a six pack and go pick a fight with some of the other contestants, but eventually decided I should just save my energy for the race.

After sign up, I made my way back to the truck and started figuring out what I was going to wear for the race.  I got dressed and went on quick worm up ride up and down the street a few times make sure that I wasn’t over or under dressed for the event.  Even though it was cold and crappy out, I know my self well enough to know that after a few minutes of vigorous activity regardless of conditions I would be warmed up to the point of over heating.  So I ended up doing some layering.  I ended up with a long sleeve dry fit, a riding jersey and and my new Klim Inversion jacket, which ended up being the perfect combo.  The jacket has a zipper vent in the back that I had wide open and I just used the main zipper in the front through out the race to keep me at a perfect riding temperature, I can’t stress enough how much I like this piece of apparel, so I will probably write an article on it some time in the near future.  Any how once I got my self situated and the bottle holders on the bike set up with my favorite during drink that I’m not sponsored by.  I checked the air in my Maxxis tires and made sure my Spider Grips were secure, loaded up on my MXN supplements and I was ready to roll.  The rain ended up coming to a halt about a half an hour before the start of the race and it warmed up to a balmy 35 degrees.  So the conditions were near perfect right?

The way this particular race started was a bit of a mass start.  They had what they call a neutral roll out and once we got to a certain point, it was on.  Basically they had us all gather for a riders meeting in the middle of this small town of Echo Oregon.  After the riders meeting we started behind a pace car that lead us out of town to a marked gravel road at which point the actual race started.  There was about two miles of gravel road prior to getting into the single track.  This worked out well, as every one was fairly spread out by the time we got to the single track and it didn’t create much of a bottle neck.  I quickly settled into a pace that had me some where in the top five…..Of the last seven.  OK, perhaps it wasn’t quite that bad but out of the 177 entries I’d say I was somewhere in the back 1/3 of the pack.  The terrain was mostly rolling hills with some fun and fast rocky and technical descents, with a couple of creek beds thrown in for good measure.  With so much traffic ahead of me it actualy worked out to be prime conditions by the time I hit the course do to every one in front of me drying it up.  I only went through 2 or 3 sections all day that were a bit slimy.  So between that and being properly dressed I was pretty happy with the conditions.

The race took me right at 3hrs to complete.  I went back and forth the whole time with several other guys, so it made for an impression of competition, when in reality is was just trying to survive.  It was fairly grueling and I had to stop a couple of times to stretch a cramp out of my left thigh, but the thought of quitting never crossed my mind.  At the end of the ride I was more than happy get off the bike, but immediately realized how much I enjoyed it and that it was nice to get out side and off of the trainer.  After talking to several of the more experienced riders, I gathered that this was a particularly brutal course especially for a first time out.  So I wasn’t to bummed with how I did or how I felt for that matter.  The guy that took the overall came in shortly after an hour and 15 min.  Considering that and the fact that the Pro’s and the Category 1 competitors had an additional 6 miles than the rest of us, I’d say that guy was quite the machine.  The next was somewhere near the 2 hour mark, then it was a fairly steady flow of incoming riders until about the 3.5 hour mark.

So other than an obviosly intense workout why would I consider this a close second to seat time on the quad?  Well you see I didn’t get much more than a half an hour in the sand woops on my quad the day before and woke up Sunday morning feeling like I got in a workout but did not over do it by any means.  This was the plan for my first ride so I could ease my way back into it, as well as be able to ride in this Mt. Bike race the next day.  The thing that surprised me the most is how much I felt it in my upper body and core for the next several days and I was confident that it was from the Mt. Bike and not the quad.

I’m excited about my new found training tool that I have had in my arsanal for about five years now and didn’t even know it.  I’m even more excited to realize that I have a killer trail network within a half an hour from the house.  I have done this exact same ride twice now.  I knocked 10 minutes off of my race time the first time I tried it and an additional 14 minutes off the next time out.  This is partly from my training that I’m doing during the week as well as getting more comfortable with my new found training tool.  I still believe there is nothing as good as good ol’ seat time to keep you in shape to ride, but it’s nice to be able to change it up a bit too!

As always I’d like to thank all of my sponsors for sticking it out with me while I’m rebuilding myself.

And a special thanks to the one’s that helped me feel more at home with there products that cross over in to this thing they call  XC Mt. Bike racing……Hmm, maybe I need to hit up Fox Racing Shox too help me smooth out the ride a bit!