Thunderdown in Underdown

I feel like I keep making excuses for my races and I am pretty tired of it. Things haven't really gone all that well so far. I have been fighting some sort of illness for months that looks is though will hopefully be identified and treated soon (should get an update next Monday). And I think, after some trusty interwebs research, I have figured out the shortness of breath and racing heart beat at my last two races, causing me to go on cruise control. So there is hope that I can turn this year's racing around.

The Thunderown itself was a bit hectic, I had to drive up and back on Saturday. Which made for a long day. The race was very well run and I always appreciate when there are aid stations, even if I don't use them. They are a nice safety net. The 3hr course went like this for me:

We line up, I look around and see that it is a very small group. The junior(eventual winner) next to me was probably my best competition due to the 70lbs I had on him and the amount of climbing on the course. The race started really casual, like 15mph on double track casual, and I end up on the front, on a course I have never seen. Things are going alright, but my heart was not coming down at all on parts of the course where it should. After 15 minutes of shortness of breath and a racing (ironic word choice, no?) heart rate I let the top 3 go and decided to just enjoy the trails. Which up to this point were off the hook.

Eventually another guy catches me (who I caught later, but stayed about 100 ft behind until he mysteriously disappeared???) So I am jra and thinking to myself that I have to let the organizer know that this course is sweet. But then I get to, oh about mile 7 or 8, and the sweet singletrack becomes a rut-fest with little to no flow. Now, I like techy, but techy can still have flow and the next 8-10 miles of the course had glimpses and short bursts of techy flow that were great, but for the most part it was just back busting roughness with short steep climbs in between. Which is sad because for the most part, the last third of trail was sweet too, but I had little patience left in my back to enjoy it and I just wanted to be done.

So I finished, stood there for about 20 minutes stretching my back, cleaned up, said my good-byes and I was on the road headed home.

On a unrelated note, the Gun Show is awesome and I plan to get there whenever I can.