Mountainview is the course I both love and hate. More specifically, I hate half of it, and love the other half. (As an aside, I told someone that it's a really good course, to which he replied, "really? I'd heard it was pretty technical, I'm surprised to hear you say that." And then I pre-rode, and remembered that I hate the very-technical, rooty first half, and love the fun, flowy second half. Always ending on fun means always walking away thinking it's all good.)
On Saturday, it had just finished raining, so the trails were a bit tacky, but mostly dry. Very fun stuff. Lots of opportunity to practice stuff. I have a few bruises and I killed the paint on my bike by dropping it in the rock garden. I rode with DD for a lap, while the Boy played with the elite kids, and then he and I did a lap together. It was pretty good, and I felt ready to race.
It rained all night overnight, resulting in a very wet and muddy course. They took out a few sections off the start (including the rock garden), which probably benefit me overall. I opened up a rather large gap on the opening climb, and was off the front for a bit. One rider wasn't too far behind me, and she got past me just before heading into the second single track section. Two more riders got by about halfway through the lap, after I had a lovely, muddy slow-speed crash, and had to get up the world's slickest muddy hill. Oh, how I was wishing for toe spikes in my shoes on that section!
I lost a bit of drive at the start of lap two, especially when I realized that the drink I ended up with was too gross to consume while racing (I say "ended up with" because there were some... let's say 'feed zone errors', which resulted in a lot of bitter muttering in lap two). I knew 5th was close behind, which gave me enough impetus to not give up altogether. Another 4th place, and definitely one of the most challenging races of the season.
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