Lock 4

The season is officially over but I cannot seem to stop racing. For the first time since I started down this career path, I am not ready for a break. On the contrary, I am LOOKING for more. Not that I really have any race fitness right now, but I am still loving getting out there, much to the dismay of the poor soul that I keep convincing to go with me, namely my wonderfully understanding husband.

The TBRA calendar has a couple of late season races still left and I am THERE! Mark's response was "alright, if we have to". So, we loaded up the car and headed to Gallatin, TN to the Lock 4 mountain bike race. This trail is always really fun and fast; a virtual roller coaster through the trees. As we got closer to the race, Mark looks at me and says "does that look like rain?" RAIN?? No, couldn't be...we haven't had rain in MONTHS. This has been the driest summer in something like 75 years. In fact, we had just pulled all of our rain gear out of our bags and put it away. Yes, it was rain. It started as we pulled into the park and was pouring by the time Mark started. Hmmmm, I think I'll wait in the car until my race. (That went over well...) Judging from the appearance of the racers, it was going to be a muddy day. I hate what mud does to my bike but I am good at riding in it so I was almost excited about it. Mark was not. He suffered through and had a decent day but was none too happy about it.

About 30 minutes before my start, the skies parted and the rain went away. They said "go" and it was muddy for the first lap but after that it ended up being dry and fast. I had a long week of training in my legs (I am already doing base for next year) so I started hard but backed off quickly to a nice tempo pace and had a blast. And to top it off, I WON. With weekends like this it is hard to hang up the race numbers for the winter.

Thanks for reading...