After figuring out that my race was in fact on Saturday, not Sunday as I expected on Friday afternoon when I had just committed to riding with Anthony makes for a pretty interesting sequence of events! So its Friday morning back at home, and I'm rolling out of the driveway on the road bike for a few hours on the road bike in some pretty nasty wind, but we'll ignore the wind for a second. Its BEAUTIFUL out, clear blue skied and in the mid 60's; It doesn't get much better than this as far as I'm concerned. Anthony and I knocked off about 40 miles together around the valley and enjoyed suffering a bit in the wind but were blessed with a tail wind down river road (this NEVER happens). Overall on the day I put in about 60 miles of riding and definitely rode a little harder than I should have, when you get two people that have been focusing on racing for the past few months that tends to happen!
After some food and stretching after getting off the bike I got my Darkside ready to rock for the race at Massasoit the following day. I had never raced there before, and had no idea what to expect. The bike was dialed in, and after some dinner I was in bed before you could bat an eye.
On Saturday morning I grabbed some breakfast, packed the car with my bike, a few sets of tires, and hit the road! After a few hours I got to Taunton and was at the race. After registering for the cat 1 race, and some extremely helpful parking lot schmoozing I decided to make a last minute tire swap, and mounted up some 10 year old Continental twisters. This decision, though probably unnecessary, was a very good one. The course in Massasoit state park is fast, is not incredibly technical, but it turned out that the rolling terrain and dry conditions suited me perfectly.
I lined up with the 19-29 cat 1's for the first time in over a year. After some weird looks from everybody because my stem was over an inch longer than theirs, and my handlebars a few inches narrower we were hearing the countdown and waiting for the whistle. The whistle blew and we were off! I clipped in and took off I was the first person down the 1/4 mile pavement section, and the firs into the woods. After the first section I continued to extend my lead for the duration of the race, and was racing to prove that I do not belong in the cat 1 field. My goal for the day was to catch up to the back end of the pro/open field and ride with them but until then I was going to have as much fun as possible!
Ok, so you all know the feeling, the perfect day where you have seemingly endless fitness, are super motivated, and you are bike is working perfectly; the day where the stars align and everything clicks. Well today was that day for me, by the end of the the first lap I had picked up 2 minutes on everybody, and had caught a few of the people that had gotten gassed early on in the open race.
I rode at a pretty steady pace for the remaining two laps, and for the duration of the race was doing everything I could to maximize fun without being a total idiot. I was putting up a good roost in some of the loose corners, doubling technical sections, and having a great bicycle ride!
At the end of the race I crossed the line about 3 minutes ahead of the rest of the field, and felt really good about what turned out to be a race for me, against myself more than anything. Races where you do a good 2/3rds of the race alone can be pretty difficult mentally. I think the biggest victory for today was a big mental victory, I proved to myself that I can ride by myself and keep driving and pushing harder even when there is nobody in sight, and nobody behind you breathing down your neck.
After I crossed the finish line, collected my bottles, and cooled down I had a great talk with Colt from Cycling Dirt. We did a post race interview, and he asked to do a Pro bike interview to check out the bike that I love so much!
Here are some links!
http://www.cyclingdirt.org/videos/coverage/view_video/236970-root-66-massasoit-lung-opener/329620-matt-green-post-massasoit-lung-opener-1st-cat-1
http://www.cyclingdirt.org/videos/coverage/view_video/234969-pro-bike-season-one/330349-matt-green-pro-bike-spooky
Here's a big thank you to Colt for making me feel popular on the internetz
Craig Mello took some really awesome pictures as well. Big thank you's here too!
Stick 'em up!
