Fat Chuck's Revenge
I need to get a little more ‘with’ the program for staff blogging. It has been a pretty busy racing season already, and my multisport season has not even started yet.
Last weekend, I raced the last event in the TMBRA Marathon Series…Fat Chucks Revenge at Rocky Hill Ranch. I’ll condense the 5 hour 10 minute 60 mile race into a paragraph. As usual, the race started out fast. The course was being run backwards, so we had a pretty good hill at the start. I found myself in about 15th after we started, but after the hill I was riding pretty strong in about 6th. I would hold this position for about 6-7 miles. After that, I went straight, the trail went left, and I was at the back of a group sitting in about 15th. That’s how the rest of my 1st lap would go. I rode terribly. Lap #1 ended with a split of about 1:43.
Lap 2 started after I had a quick transition to get new bottles. After 1/2 the lap, I had passed a couple of guys and rolled up onto Keith Gray, a friend of mine and sometime MTB riding partner. Keith pulled me through Lap 2, and I started to ride the bike a little bit better in the singletrack and continued to ride strong on the open sections. Lap #2 ended, and I was at about 2:28 total time or a 1:45 second lap.
Another quick transition to get new bottles, and I was onto Lap #3. I really pushed this lap and rode all sections pretty smoothly. I would imagine that I was making up some time on the guys in front of me…unfortunately the damage was done, and I was a little too far back to make a significant dent into their lead. I rolled through the finish in 3:10 for a 1:42 last lap. 5th in the Open Class and 9th overall. I ended up finishing the series in 5th place overall.
Next up for me is Ironman 70.3 California on March 29. I’ll get to see how all of this off road racing translates into a road triathlon.