I went to Chattanooga last weekend with the family and on Sunday did the Raccoon Mountain SERC MTB race. What a beautiful reservoir and trails. It must have been an engineering nightmare to build but it is really scenic and not far from the city. The race was smaller than I expected and there were only 13 40+ expert guys and with 10 minutes before the race the promoter decided to cut our lap count down to two. I was using it as a training race so I really wanted 3 hours but I guess with the nheat and the lap distances being 12 miles, he did not want to over-extend the geezers. Too bad, we were up for it.

The race started off nice on a long road section and I was maybe 5th into the woods. I soon backed off and rode at my own pace but around mile 2 my seat broke. so I had to compensate for this and try to get off and fix it every once and awhile. I lost major time and placings and by the middle of the lap I was hoping to just finish the race. I rolled into the start/finish and asked the promoter if I could fix my bike and finish. He said yes but I would have to be DQ'd for getting outside assistance. I was in last so it did not matter to me. I fixed the seat temporarily and did the seocnd lap much quicker than the first. In the end I finished 11th and he did not DQ me after all.

I have been trying to prepare for cross this fall and the volume and intervals are going well. By no means am I doing PRO numbers (like 25-30 hour/week) but more like 12 or 13 hours. I am actually going to try and do a few road races since MTB racing right now is boring me. I am going to do the GA Games RR and the Atlanta Road Course and Dacula RR as part of the Gwinnett Fest race week. These will be in 40+ and I will probably be mid-pack at best. These are training races so I will not peak for them, just race through.

Starcrossed is in mid-September so August will be spent mostly doing cross workouts and other things to prepare me for that.