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jbird
VB Team Member
| Joined: | Thu Apr 24th, 2008 |
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Posted: Mon Jul 7th, 2008 01:52 am |
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Middle Mountain Momma – Beginning of May
This is one of my favorite races – strickly point-to-point like all the races in this series. It starts in a river valley climbs up a rocky bouldry start, cuts over to some awesome smooth single track switchbacks, then back down to the river valley. After that you climb the OTHER side of the valley, to a mountain that has 2 peaks, which ends in a descent that we had dubbed: ”the best descent in the world”. After that are the last 3 miles, which are oddly the crux of the race – mostly because you think you are done, but you still have a handful of difficult stream crossings and a couple miles of false flat up hill. If you can get mentally prepared for this last section you are almost guaranteed to pass at least a couple folks. To finish you descend the technical starting part and you’re done.
This year the field was a bit smaller than usual, but I got to line up with long time friendly rival Susan Mustante (team). The start ramped up slowly (we all knew we had 2.5 hours and ~5000 feet of climbing to go). I tried to turn it up a notch on the false flat down before the switch backs, then just pick off riders one at a time on the switch backs. I knew I was moving pretty well, but by the second mountain I knew I wasn’t going as fast as last year. I ended up 3-4 minutes down on my pb, but I held on to the lead for the win. The leaves piled up on the descents made the technical sections more slow going this year, and my descending wasn’t quite as confident after the helmet break. Well anyway, I can’t wait to test my skills out next year and hopefully go for a new pb then
Camp Hilbert # 2 – Beginning of May
I first became aware of this series of 3 races at the Camp Hilbert venue last year. Since then I try to make as many as possible. The course is in a lap format (3 laps for women’s pro/ex and 4 for men’s), with every consecutive race going in the opposite direction as the previous. The course is super fun and windy single track with some huge whoop-dee-doos. Since the course is closer to the center of VA there isn’t much elevation change (esp. compared to the mountains), so the challenge is more to stay as smooth as possible and accelerate out of the corners. Some of the big hitters were elsewhere this iteration of the race, so I raced most of the time against the top sport men. It was a blast and a challenge to stay mentally in the race, since any attention drift had the potential to land me in a tree. I finished first, but had to cut out to get back to Charlottesville for some trail work. The local racing club was putting on a mtb race the following day and we had to mark the course. As we rode to the trail from the car that afternoon, I was definitely feeling that morning’s race and was almost dropped leaving the parking lot.
Camp Hilbert #3 – July 6
I was the only pro/ex women racing in the last race of this series, so I started with the single speeders. That was fun. One racer joked at the start that I was a shoe in for the hole shot (it was a slightly downhill start). I wasn’t going to interfere with the race, but I tell you I was caught off guard by how fast the ss did start! I had to shift into the big ring to not get dropped Anyway, the race was a blast and good practice for me punching it up over the short climbs, and staying smooth through the turns. I also won the 3 race series so I am getting a jersey – I’m stoked!
I am a little nervous about the impending nationals, but I am practicing a better mental attitude through the republic of anaerobia (i.e. not giving up), so hopefully that will help! I’m excited about see all the bellas again, and hopefully kicking it up a knotch from last year where I was plagued by mechanicals.
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Miss Mary
VB Team Member
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Posted: Wed Jul 9th, 2008 05:39 am |
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hi johanna, can you give me our last name and the links to the results to the races so that I can post them on the bella results page.
great job!!!!
-mm
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jbird
VB Team Member
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Posted: Wed Jul 9th, 2008 02:08 pm |
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Hi Miss Mary
Johanna Kraus
and here is the link to the results for the Hilbert series:
http://www.runriderace.com/results/
and the results for the middle mt momma
http://www.bikeva.com/race.htm
Thanks!
Johanna
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Miss Mary
VB Team Member
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Posted: Wed Jul 16th, 2008 02:10 pm |
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Hi Johanna, sorry for the series races, there are several results to choose from, can you narrow it down for me.
Thanks.
-mm
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