Windham Mountain Race Report

Windham was just another great solid race. I ended up getting second. Unfortunately Seth and Emsky did not show up to the race today. Little did I know though that a Canadian Team was there and a guy on the New Zealand team also showed up. The course was awesome with lots of climbing and fun fast descents where you can really get a rhythm. The laps for the course were very short to make it more spectator friendly. My lap average for the race was a little over 19 minutes and we did 4 laps, so this ended up being a very short race overall. This morning at 8 on the foggy slopes of the Catskills, our race had begun. I immediately took the lead and started hammering it. I was scared of the Canadian Team guys coming up behind me the whole time. Around mid way through the climb to the top on the first lap, one of the guys caught me. He was absolutely hauling. I stayed with him just about all the way up the top, but I let him go because I knew I was going to blow out if I kept that pace up. He came through the first lap at about 18 minutes and I came around at about 18:20. I was kind of feeling the effects of going out hard on the second lap and sure enough the New Zealander caught me. I stayed with him till around the top when he gapped me by a little. I caught him on the downhills by the start of the 3rd lap I had caught back up to the New Zealander. At this point the other 2 Canadian team guys were about 15 seconds behind us, so they were closing the gap. The New Zealander though passed me once again and by the end of the 3rd lap had about 30 seconds on me. At this point I was probably about 3 minutes behind the leading Canadian. On the 4th lap I started coming on strong and was catching the New Zealander and leader by big chunks. By the time we got to the start of the downhill on the last lap, I was 15 seconds behind the New Zealander. I bombed the downhill like my life depended on it and caught him before the final flat and climb at the end. At this point it became mano y mano and tactics came into play. I knew there was a climb right before the finish so I tried to draft behind him on the flats to the end. He tried to shake me off but I was just stuck to his tire. When he realized this, he eased off to get some energy for the last climb up to the finish. I knew I couldn't let him ease off, so right then I hit it hard and just sprinted for my life up the hill and on the flat to the finish line. It hurt so bad and was an all out sprint. I beat him by one second. After the race I was happy to find out that I had cut down my 3 minute gap from the start of the 3rd lap all the way down to 2 minutes! I was catching the leader at a high rate of speed and if the race was definitely a little longer I think I could of caught him. The winners time was a 1:14:45 and mine was a 1:16:45, so it was one short race. The officials didn't expect us to crank out near that fast of lap times. This is most likely why they made the pro women's race 5 laps long when it was planned to be 4 laps. So in Cat 1 17-18, a Canadian won, I got second, a New Zealander got 3rd, and a Canadian got 4th and 5th. After me and the New Zealander, there was around 2 minutes to the 4th Canadian and then another 2 minutes back to the 5th Canadian. In 6th was the second best American who was 12 minutes back from the winner. I'm not totally sure on the times but I'll post them on twitter when they get announced. After the race I chatted with the Canadians and the New Zealander and they were all great guys. What a fun race! It was a short all out slugfest between us. Overall all a great way to the end the season. I can tell I'm gaining lots of speed quickly and can't wait for next year. My time was 2 minutes faster than the fastest Cat 1 adult.