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Burns and I had a goal of being out of the house by 9am Thursday morning. We were out by 9:05 am, a record for us. The drive up to Canaan, VT went smoothly with minor pee breaks. Unlike last week where the Canadian government mixed up my identity with a criminal this week we made it through without a problem. In fact, the border patrol didn’t even scan our passports! By 2:30 pm we were cruising into Montreal only to be stopped for an hour and a half due to traffic! It seems like any week day from 7am-8pm there is going to be traffic jams in Montreal. By 5:15pm Burns and I had arrived to the rental house with no major problems. Let’s just say the rental house wasn’t as “plush” as the description. The house was more like a nice camp vs a house. Even though the place was pretty run down it did have the necessities, kitchen and beds.
On Friday I was able to put in a few laps on the course. The course was pretty much identical to the one in years past. The trail crew at Tremblant had been busy laying down some gravel in wet spots and building up some berms on the decent which made for a better course. At a normal pace with some short hard efforts I was putting in 25 to 28 minute laps, not too shabby. After getting a decent feel for the course and the conditions Burns and I headed over to registration to check in. We had to wait for over an hour to have some lady take a pink highlighter and cross off our names, unreal.
Friday night was enjoyed by diner with fellow house mates, Adam Snyder, Nate Rinquist, Thom Parsons, and Linnea Koons. We ate your regular pasta dinner and talked for many hours. Colt and his girlfriend even joined us for ice cream later that night. When you are having a good time, laughing and enjoying yourself you become more relaxed. Being relaxed is always a good thing especially going into a big race. Colt did show us the call up list for Saturday’s race. I was ranked 17th for the race and there were 80 guys on the list! This race was going to be much larger than last weekend’s race in Baie-Saint-Paul. My goal for Saturday was top 20 after seeing the start list.
The start of the race was insane! It was so fast and there were a ton of elbows being thrown around. I was able to avoid any major piles ups and even more into the top 10 going into the single track. However, the extremely hard pace caused my lungs to tighten up. I was forced to use my rescue inhaler again. After a few minutes of going at a slower pace and letting the medication go to work I was back at it. I was somewhere right around 20th going into lap number two. By the 5th lap I was maybe 16th? I was constantly lap after lap making up huge grounds on the climbs and then sucking on the steep descents. I seem to do fine with technical riding on flat land with minor ups and downs (like the riding here on the coast of Maine), but when I get to the steep sustained descents I seem to lose all my technical skills. In the last lap and a half I decided it was time to unleash my inner warrior. I tried to let up on the brakes on the descents (not sure if that really happened) and give it my all on the climbs. The plan worked out well as I crossed the line in 12th place! Two weeks in a row and two 12th place finishes, not too shabby. Again I earned some cash money and picked up some UCI points.
Saturday night Burns and I hit up the Red Bull “Up-Down” event held in the village center. It was an awesome time watching DH’ers and XC’ers team up. How the race worked was the DH’er would bomb down the course and tag off to his XC teammate. The XC guy would then haul ass through a short course lasting about 6 minutes. While the XC’er was out the DH’er was taking the chair lift to the top and waiting. Once the XC guy completed the lap the DH’er would be radioed and given the clear to take off. While the DH’er bombed down the 2 minute course the XC guy waited to be tagged. What ever team completed the most laps in 2 hours won some big cash money! Oh and the event went from 8pm to 10pm so lights were needed! The event was an awesome way to get people out and enjoy the village at night, not to mention it brought the XC and DH crowd together, something that rarely happens now’a days.
Overall it was a great weekend in Quebec. Burns and I left early Sunday morning to hit up a Root 66 race in Vermont on our way home. We got stopped going through the US customs. The border patrol brought out a drug sniffing dog, made us park our car off to the side and wait inside while they tore it apart. Over an hour later they realized we were just two skinny cyclists dorks and let us go. That hour+ delay cost us the race though. We weren’t able to make it to the race in time. So instead Burns made the executive call to hit up Kingdom Trails. The two of us ripped some sweet single track for almost two hours to work off the frustration of missing a great race. The trails were awesome and just what we needed to blow off some steam.
Overall it was a great weekend. After two solid weeks of solid results I feel much more confident about my racing capabilities. My goal is to carry this confidence with me throughout the rest of the 09 season. Hopefully it works out!
