CX Begin! Altoona Palooza

Tomorrow is the first Iowa Cyclocross race so we're getting out a whole different set of hardware which hasn't been used since last year. Everything wintered over just fine and it's time to rock and roll.

IMBCS #6 George Wyth

Now over the half-way point in our MTB series, it's time to take on some shorter drives. Only 2.5hrs each way today.

This race was at George Wyth State Park, just outside Waterloo. I'd never been to this area before really and it was quite a bit different than I expected. It was very marshy / swampy and had ponds all over the place. There were big sand pits, single-track trail right next to the water and even a few tree canopy tunnels. XC-3 even got to do a nearly respectable length race here at two laps and 45-minutes ride time. Unfortunately for Corrine, Women XC-3 was only running one lap for half the time of the men. It's hard to pick a favorite course so far this year but this one would be near the top.

The management was really great and had all sorts of food and beverage available. A local coffee roaster brought out a big Igloo cooler. It was, amazingly, not regular coffee but rather a cooler full of espresso with some milk and ice thrown in it. Perfect! I hadn't had espresso for a while. There was also a local brewery and pizza/pasta house handing out free food.
Speaking of food, I was trying a new nutrition strategy today which was to consume as many carbohydrate calories as possible. This is an undertaking from me since I'm rarely actually hungry. I had several packs of shot-bloks before the race even started and then went straight into full-calorie SoBE drinks right after the race ended. I felt the best I've felt after a race since probably April or so. We've been using a nutrition coach lately as well, and the general learning we've done there is that our calorie counts are just too low. Onto more eating!

We hung around for a while to wait on results/awards and watch XC 1/2 start. 

Corrine came away with a 3rd pa

And Cody with second.

IMBCS #5 Moorehead Pioneer Park

I think this was about the earliest we've left home for a race, out on the road before 5:00am. We had about a 200mi drive to north-west Iowa and our race starts mid-morning. 

Our new strategy to arrive at check-in more than 5-minutes before staging has been going well. This leaves us time to do things like unpack, eat, and pre-ride the course. My legs were feeling decent when we got there and I think I'm starting to adjust to the new training schedule. Corrine and I have been spending two days a week in the gym doing both weight-lifting and running, two days a week on bike trainers in the garage doing interval max training, and two more days putting in mileage out on the trail/road. This leaves one day of doing nothing but that might become yoga soon. I like it!

The whole thing was a blast with constant brutal transitions from steep climbs to fast, swoopy downhill. Lap times were running 22-28min. Being in Category-3 and only doing one lap made me wish again to upgrade next year for some more ride time. We'll see. 

Corrine took home a 3rd place and Cody snagged a #1 spot. 

Elkhart TT Finale

I don't have much for photos from this evening because, on the final day of the series, I also entered the Elkhart TT. It was....a long, straight piece of road that I tried to ride on really fast. 

Corrine and Rick both ended the series with a first-place overall!
Cody and I were, if nothing else, not last place.

IMBCS #4 Sunderbruch

Back to Davenport this weekend for what would be another large and well organized event. Similar to the last FORC-run race we did, there were lots of great people handling all the nuts and bolts to make everything seamless. There were even a few vendor tents and another fabulous grill/caterer.

What continues to be fun for me about this points series is riding new trails that I've never seen before. All of them have been great so far and this Sunderbruch system was near the top of my favorites (as Iowa goes). This was also the first time this year when we'd pre-ride the course beforehand, which was really nice. 

Some photos from pre-riding. We arrived the evening before and had plenty of light to put a few miles in.

It's race day and the sun is shining! The forecast calls for clear skies all day.

The race started with a long road climb up a paved multi-purpose path before the course split out onto singletrack. The climb was good for finding max heart rate, which didn't burn me out today since I actually spent a few minutes warming up. We were to do two laps of this course for a total of 6ish miles. There was lots of elevation gain and also some blazing down-hill action. As I was climbing on my second lap, I got to witness a guy blasting the downhill section, hitting something, and sailing like a paper airplane off into the bushes/mini-ravine. Before he even stops falling, he's already moaning "Was it a good one?". The row of people standing along the side videoing assured him that it was.

Elkhart TT #4

The fourth of five Elkhart time-trials was today. It was a beautiful night to be outside, just a little warm with a constant gentle breeze. It seemed there was a slightly smaller crowd this month and I'm guessing the Iowa Games had a thing or two to do with it. 

A pretty standard time trial for spectating - watch people ride off down the road and then they eventually come back. Highlights included Corrine getting another 1st place which locked up her 1st overall in the points series. It's now a sure thing even if she doesn't show up for the final.  A new one for me was a sighting of a bamboo tandem bike!

IMBCS # 3 Seven Oaks

After a long break where there's a gap in the season schedule, we're hitting it hard now! IMBCS #3 today which is at Seven Oaks Recreation near Boone IA. The race staging and registration is on top of the ski slope. Somehow arriving early (new experience for us), we find that there is almost no one here and wonder how tiny these fields will be. We find the parking area where there are a few more vehicles and get setup. More people rolled in later but I think there were less than ten people in my category. 

I don't have any pictures of the Jimmy Johns team racing but there were several photographers wandering around so we'll see if anything turns up. 

This course was super fast and has a pleasant mix of technical features as well as smooth downhill runs. It sounded like lots of people had visited to pre-ride it in the week prior but we did no such thing and, in fact, didn't even go on the trail prior to staging. After a really fast start down some gravel, I was trying to stay in 3rd and ended up blowing through some marker tape and almost rode into a big drop-off. 

As we were milling around waiting for official results, I saw a guy licking shot-blocks and sticking them to his top tube. He claimed this works great and they stick best if you get the Margarita flavor. He was racing Cat-1 Expert and we did see him later after finishing his first lap with the blocks still on board.

Official (enough to fill the podium spots anyway) results came out with Cody in 2nd place in his category and Corrine 3rd in hers. I think I am 6th (same category as Cody) but no complete list out yet.