Winter Park Cross Country Loop

This post is really for my own reading... I know race reports in a long format sort of bore people, but I wanted this for my own reference....

Winter Park's website is epicsingletrack.com, but Sunday it felt like maybe we should go to epicfireroad.com. Parts of the course were fun, but it seemed like every turn we went on a fireroad and up again... Regardless, the race was fun and we had lots of good friends show up, Melissa, Nicolette, Marni, Chris, Shawn, Bill (although we didn't see him), Brett, and Cori.

The race was sort of a wake-up call for me on many levels. I downgraded to Beginner from Sport this year due to lack of fitness. I felt sort of bad doing it, but Beginner at Winter Park isn't really Beginner, it's super competitive and any true beginner would get chewed up and spit out. To add insult to injury, the sequence of races changed over last year, I thought it was the much shorter Mountain Circuit One when in fact it was the much longer Cross Country Loop and I only had limited water.

The race started out as expected, the pack left the line going uphill at an astonishing pace. I knew it would be suicide to hang on so I just let them go. I told myself it was almost better that way as I wouldn't have to downhill with the beginners, something I was dreading.

As I finished the initial uphill and hit the flat road I went in to time trial mode hoping to get to the singletrack before the next wave of beginners, starting just two minutes behind me. My hopes were dashed as some dude came flying past me... He was the typical non-beginner who should have upgraded to Sport a long time ago. Over a minute later the pack caught me and shortly after that we hit the singletrack.

I was amazed at how slow most of the beginners went downhill, and evenmoreso how mean they were to each other. I was sitting at least 8th in a downhill pack of probably a dozen and the back guy kept yelling, "Come on, speed up"... I laughed as I could be going downhill much faster as well, but I wasn't letting it bother me... After about the third time he yelled it I casually yelled back that maybe he should upgrade.

In the first rocky downhill I bet I saw close to a dozen crashes, or at least it felt that way. Everytime a front guy would crash, everyone would slam on their brakes... Finally I told myself that the next time someone crashed I would pass in the rough no matter how hairy it was. Seemingly an instant later someone went over their handlebars and I took the opportunity and left that group behind. I caught the next downhill group in no-time and pretty much hung with them until we hit the uphill where a lot of the people I passed caught me again.

The race was rather boring at that point until we hit the fire road. As boring as it was that's where I came back in to my stride and starting reeling a couple people in, most apparently were not part of my age group. I hit the downhill before the water crossing and starting picking people off again, I caught and passed two people on the downhill and got right behind a third. I hit the water crossing a split second behind the other guy and just hoped he made it because if he didn't I would be railing in to him, it was here that my water ran out.

The rest of the race was rather non-descript, I felt stronger as the race went on, probably from years of base, despite being long out of water. On the trail I passed lots of completely shattered riders, some I recognized from my age group. I told each one I saw just to keep moving and get to the end, it would be better that way, most were too far gone to care.

The end of the race felt like Winter Park was trying to punish us, everytime you thought you were headed downhill for good it started going up again. I got stuck on Long Trail behind some slow downhillers again. Many times I tried to nicely say I'd like to get by and they just sat in my way. I had to make a lot of gnarly passes on the inside of switchbacks to get around inconsiderate slower riders. I came up on a dad and his kid riding the race together, super cool, but again they wouldn't let me pass. I passed the kid on the inside of a switchback and saw him freak out and unclip. I thought I was in the clear until I hit a corner with a short, steep uphill and I was in way too big of a gear, forcing me to dismount and he came by me again.

So, boringly, I sat behind him all the down until Long Trail hit the gravel road. As we hit the gravel road I passed the kid and started grabbing gears. I saw his dad accelerating away. I had no idea what age group he was in, but if there was any chance he was in mine I wasn't going to give up that place after sitting behind them for most of the way down. I threw everything I had in to my tired legs and blew past him. At the little dip in the road I pulled the front end up and just kept going. Cruised past Nicolette and Marni waiting at the end and in to the finish line. Man I was thirsty after going without water for so long, I drank Nicolette's friends half Nalgene bottle, then a PowerAde Chris brought me, and some of Marni's water.

A few minutes later Melissa crossed the finish line, smiling as usual, but hurting pretty good, and out of water too...

Overall, it was a blast... Sure the course was tough and there were frustrating points, but a day out with friends is always a good thing. Especially congrats to Shawn, Nicolette, Marni, and Melissa for the great placings! You drank everyone's milkshakes!