As the great Tom Tug Warren once said about racing... if you don’t periodically take an exam you don’t know where you stand. Well in lines with that it was time for another exam.
However this exam had less to do with race results and more with finding out what is the new restrictions created by the long term fall out of injuries from March 2019. This time it would be a mtb course not a gravel one so some different things to learn. And while had done a test of things on the mtb prior this time the trail would be easier. However this would be a race course with a fixed route while the previous test had been a training ride for a long period of time riding.
And remember doing it on a race course is different then doing it on a training ride.
After the usual drive down day before and over night truck camp out it was to the race site at the Northumberland Forest. And then the help with some of the start are setting up. After that took advantage of the Dirtbag Ute being near the start to lay in the back to let my body rest. To help decrease the aches potentially might develop if standing to long. The Dirtbag Ute location made that easy and seemed to help. So this will become another option to decrease injury pain in the future.
This exam slash research experiment would be the 45km version. And knowing that it would be not at race pace chose to essentially be DFL in the TT style start. And off I was for the three laps of 15km each.
First lap was at least in my head sucky as several times wondered if my heart was in this anymore. Maybe it was unconscious worry about the long term effects of the injuries. And that spent two years taking it easy as the “experts “ keep trying to sell me on. It isn’t easy racing with this much going on in ones head as PTSI and Anxiety make it really hard to not think about it all.
All that gives you is simply finish one lap and keep it going as best as can. Some would call it relentless forward motion but more like limping along to me at least.
On the first lap it took a bit to convince myself to do what can on the climbs and such then bomb the downhills. At least trying to figure out a way to keep things going and at least have some fun. Though on this day fun wasn’t exactly in abundance looking back. So after the first pass through the timing area it was lap two which was more of the same till the second pass through of the timing area.
At this point it was 30k and something in my head twigged to get me to take a photo of the GPS. Good thing to as after the 30km point things began to slowly go downhill. The aches and such from the traumatic injuries slowly began to turn up their volumes. While I didn’t bonk like other racers who where faster this Clydesdale had a different challenge. Getting through lap 3 as the injury aches slowly turned up the volume. Which required the third lap to be much slower while trying to manage those issues which didn’t exactly make lap 3 fun.
And finally lap 3 was done and so was the day. And straight to the Ute for some Dr Pepper after going the distance.
And the the results from this exam where not great. As the results mean can’t exceed 25-30km or time wise 2.5-3 hours for a race as that is when the injury issues like back and shoulder start up. So no more above 30km events in the future is hard to accept. Hard to accept as it was a decision forced on me by someone else‘s choices and actions. And is another thing kinda hard to wrap my head around which will take some time to work out.
So while the event wasn’t exactly fun for some parts it was still good to do something.
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