Saving the Best for Last: Park City Point to Point

Race start at Quinn's Junction. 180 racers signed up for this first-year event-not too shabby!

My mountain bike season is DONE. Yesterday I raced the Park City Point to Point and I couldn't think of a better way to close my '09 mountain bike season. Phenomenal race organization, 75 miles + of world class single track and lots of friends to race and hang out with both during and after the race. It didn't hurt that I had a great day on the bike, too. A big pat on the back and a thank you goes out to Shannon Bofelli and the entire crew of staff and volunteers who made this race such a great experience for all. This race is destined to become a classic. Tons of schwagg, perfect course, great course markings and equal payout to the men and women. They also threw a ton of support to the Mountain Trails Foundation, the group responsible for the crazy sick singletrack network in Park City.

Heather and I teaming up at the start. She raced the 1st half of a duo team. It was nice to have a fellow Kenda buddy to chase around.

Other than the fact that my fork blew out at mile 38, all went "smoothly". My upper body/hands/wrists/forearms/shoulders got more of a workout than they bargained for. I couldn't help but laugh to myself that my Tomac Carbide SL (I am sooooo in love with that bike) was kind of like riding a mullet-all business up front and party in the rear. Piloting a 1/2 rigid bike was a total trip, kind of like the anti-hardtail. It was weird to ride it through the uber rocky second half of the course, but it all worked out. I just had to turn down the volume significantly on the descending and be extremly picky about my line choice.

It was a hard race. As us Massholes like to say, it was wicked frickin' hard. The climbing was relentless and the descending provided lots of fun but no rest whatsoever. That's what happens on a course that's 98% singletrack. Enjoyable, but very taxing.

Last finish line of 2009...until Iceman

Honestly, there was no logical reason whatsoever for me to have had a good day. I have been hitting the training for cross hard in the last 2 weeks, consistently doing 2-a-days with running in the a.m. and short, high-intensity interval rides in the afternoon. I came in pretty tired and had zero expectations other than to try to enjoy the best race course I have EVER raced on. Park City is seriously as good as it gets. Maybe I have come up with a good race-prep formula for next year? I know bike racing ain't rocket science, but sometimes I am so completely baffled about why good and bad days happen.

Team Fitzy from Jackson/Teton Valley getting ready to put the hurt on the locals. These are the types of really good folks endurance races are filled with, making me feel like I should quit XC racing and focus 100% on endurance.

Now it's time to put the mountain bike away for a bit, pull out the cross bike even more and build myself a set of barriers in the backyard. 2 more weeks until we leave for the east coast!

Oh yeah, I came in second place overall in 8hrs, 14min, only 39 min behind Pua. I expected her to beat me by at least an hour, so the final result wasn't nearly as demoralizing as I thought it would be.