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Dirty Duathlon Race Report

Sometimes a haiku is absolutely necessary:

 Oh Ellicottville,

Roots, rocks, climbs, flows, mud in toes.

The dirt tastes so good!

  

Saweet! The Dirty Duathlon in Ellicottville was yesterday. We didn't get lost, we didn't have to drive through anything epic. We had a fun, quick and easy drive, easy registration. I almost feel like I cheated the system Sunday morning. Action shot to the right of Doug @ reg-look at that technique! 

The course was the same as the 6 Hours of Power Course but much shorter. It's my favorite course around though because it starts with a 1.6 mile climb up dirt roads and double track and then dumps riders onto glorious single track that's so much fun to ride you don't even know you're in a race. The longer the climb the better I do, so I love the extra boost of confidence I have when I race this course. It's even got a few super techie rock spots in it as well as your fair share of roots and obstacles. As far as a race course goes-primo!

Conditions Sunday were not epic, but close enough. I'm really happy I switched to my tready Specialized rubbers Saturday evening because I needed the traction in the mountain top muck. It was that kind of muck that hardens like Quickcrete, but the FastTrak sheds so well I didn't even notice. It's so fun to shred those trails when they're covered in slimy muck-the roots and rocks are quite tricky when saturated. My Specialized Stumpjumper was silly. The whole time I was constantly impressed/surprised with how much better the hardtail 29er was on that course then my Blue FS was, especially bombing through the rock garden and while racing up the initial climb. I just keep loving that rig more! It still has no name...nothings come to me yet.

The format was Run 1 lap, bike 2. Doug started for us with the punishment, oops I mean "run," and pulled an impressive lap and tagged off to me with our ranking somewhere in the back of the top 10. Then I got to just have fun riding awesome trails. Much of my ride I was thinking to myself "man, this spot must have been horrible to run." Gotta give props to the runners...I would not have ran that course for anything less then a large fee! It must have been so treacherous on foot. After passing everyone but Trevor (fellow Crankskins rider) I settled in about 30 seconds behind him for the rest of the first lap. Second lap I hammered the climb again, stuck a stick into T's spokes to pass him, and then held 1st spot through the finish. He and his runner (I think his middle name was Fast) pulled 2nd overall so it was a great day for the Crankskins crew. Scotto and his Marathon runner pulled a nice finish as did Dave. Fun times.

That evening Chels got tied up with work so I walked down to the Jazz fest with my bud Cam and his parents (our friends). Afterwards we had some dinner and hung out for a bit. He's 13 months old and was having so much fun I just couldn't find it in me to stop him! hahah, he wrecked our place and it was hard not to join in. I had my camera on my desk from the race so I was able to snap that shot of him after he ate some of Luna's cat food and went bonkers. Clean up was not so fun :(

Pre-Race Rubber Ritual

Tires, tires, tires. If you ask me the tire is certainly the most important component after the frame and brakes. I'm an over-thinking, note taking, Excel crunching, relentlessly habitual offender when it comes to my tires. I always take close note of  how they do on particular genres of trail, different weather conditions, pressures, courses, ect. I track my mileage on my tires, my results with tires, my feelings towards them...their behaviors, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses. I know everything there is to know about everything regarding my tires. I stress each race about which tires to run-fast or slow, safe or fast, gonzo or grandma. So what's with my decidophobia come race day?

It's come to my attention that 100% of the time come race day I have erred on the side of "better safe then sorry" and run my go to combo for pretty much anything any course can throw my way. For the umpteenth time I spent yesterday and today weighing the pros and cons, asking around about conditions in Ellicottville, reading over their weather history for the past week, mulling my options, ect. Once again last minute I finally made the decision to leave the Renegade home and run my  Captain/FastTrak combo. Then it hit me a few minutes ago while making my weekly tire shuffle-"You dumb ass you do this every week!"

Ellicottville tomorrow morning for my first Duathlon, the Dirty Duathlon. I'm pretty excited. My teammate Doug's gonna have some extra fast for breakfast and rip out the run portion, then I get to shred a couple laps with my mtb on a glorious course to finish it out for us. Hopefully we'll do pretty well. It's kind of funny...two mtber's showing up at a Duathlon on the same team...but hey, we should do twice as well on the mtb part right?!?!