Mud in a drought

This weekend was the only double race weekend on the DINO MTB calendar. It happens that the races aren't too far from here, so I usually do both.
Somewhat interesting though is that I'm pretty sure it didn't rain once here in June. And probably not the last week, maybe two, of May. So it was extremely dry for Saturday's short track cross country (stxc) race.
I always like to think of the STXC race as my "tune up" for cyclocross. It's a really short lap (~1.5min), so you really can't afford to make ANY mistakes if you want to do well. We had a much smaller field this year than in years passed, probably due to the heat. There were only 6 of us and 3 of us were clearly faster than the other 3. Actually, one of us (not me) was faster than 2 of us (1 which was me), so it was really a battle for 2nd most of the race. Me and the other guy rode glued to each other pretty much the entire race. I rode the front of our 2-man group for a long time, then pulled over to make him come through for a few laps. I eventually took the front slot back, and then tried to get him to come back through at the 22minute mark (it's a 30min race). My hope was that he didn't have a watch on his bike and wouldn't know what the time was, then I could sit on him for a few laps, attack him w/ two to go and cruise in for second. He had the same plan though and wouldn't come through. Can't say I blame him. Per the text book he attacked me w two to go and beat me by like 3 seconds. It was the State STXC Championship, so I earned a bronze medal for my effort. (the guy who won is form IL, so he shouldn't have been awarded the gold IN State medal, but was anyway. So I really should have gotten silver, but whatever. It ain't no thang).
Sunday was the normal cross country (XC) race at the same venue. However, it rained Saturday night/Sunday morning. I thought: 'no big deal, it's so dry that it will tack the course up perfectly and be really fast.' Turns out it was quite wet/slippery for the first 2 of our 4 laps. By the last 2 laps the course had dried and was perfect. I rode pretty well and felt pretty good overall. I finished a few places down of where I would have liked to have been, but playing the conservative game for the first 2 laps probably cost me some time. Then I crashed on the third lap. It was one of those good 'ol loose-the-front-end-of-the-bike-on-a-rooty-downhill-crashes that I haven't had for a long time. A group of guys (2-4 of us) were coming up to pass Lindsay and the guy in front was calling out our pass to her. I was worried he was going to try an unsafe pas on her so I was looking too far ahead to watch him instead of watching my line. When you're on rooty downhills, it is generally best to be looking at you line. Next thing I know I'm on the ground and giving up a few spots. I got up and got gong, but could only regain 1 of the spots I gave up. I have a few scrapes and am a little sore from it, but nothing major at all.                   

A friend snapped this pic after I had finished. That's ~2hrs of race effort in ~100deg heat face. I ended up 16th in the race overall, which is 7th out of my "wave" and 2nd in 30-39 age group. Not my best, not my worst, pretty standard I guess.
I plan to start getting on the TT bike more in the next few weeks to get ready for the State TT race on the 22nd. I have ridden the TT bike less this year than previous years, but I have felt good on it when I have been on it.
A group of us is going to ride MTB's at Brown County Park tomorrow, July 4. It should be a fun day.
Looking at my calendar I do't think I'm racing again until the State TT, and maybe only one more MTB race after that. So the summer race season is winding down for me. That means CX looms on the horizon. I need to start thinking about getting my CX bikes back together...