Something that I don’t really remember about last year’s Pinnacle, but have assume is true, is that I was on time. If you are considering goal-setting for races, I would highly recommend making goal number one to be on time. It’s starting to sound like I wasn’t on time for this race. That’s not true. Hopefully I haven’t lost your trust already with seemingly misleading statements.
So when you buy a Garmin, the idea is to plug it in, turn it on and stop thinking. Hey, you didn’t pay $80 for nothing. Nope, you paid $80 so you no longer have to use the brain cells you used to use to figure out where the hell you were going. Now you can drink those cells into oblivion like the advanced trig brain cells you were done using after your sophomore year of high school. Mmm. Bartles and James.
Of course I’m not smart enou
gh to listen to the nice lady speaking in the machine. Cori, Harry and I left home at 6:30 Sunday morning (Father's Day) to make the 9:30 Sport race. Last time I had gone up (pre-Garmin) I had taken the Pike to 91 and cut across at the Ascutney exit. The Garmin said from the get-go to go up to 395 and told me that I would be there at 9:03, or something like that. Plenty of time. I openly scoffed at the Garmin though. Kept telling that know-it-all Brit biznitch to shut the hell up. I was in charge. I assumed once it gave up on 395 to 495 to 93 to 89 it'd be about the same time. Boy was I wrong. Once it picked up 91 it was telling me I was going to arrive at 9:28. Not great for a 9:30 start. I put the cruise at 80-ish and luckily hit no traffic.
We arrived at 9:19, eleven minutes pre-race and nine minutes before the Garmin’s original estimation. But only because I was going get-pulled-over fast. I got out of the car and put Harry's front wheel on for his 10:30 kids' race. Then I got my stuff together VERY, VERY quickly, rode/ran into the registration table and grabbed my number, ran (literally) to the bathroom and rode like a maniac to the start line. The Juniors were all on the line facing me ready to start as I was running over. I had to bushwhack to get around them. I saw Pete Dunn (also a Vet II) and sidled up in the same group with much shortness of breath and many a smirk directed my way. Two minutes to spare. Two.
I talked to Pete for a second and he said that our group had grown considerably from the pre-reg figure of 14 the night before. In the end I found out we were 21 starting. Pete said he wasn't feeling super-racy. A little tired. I wasn't sure about myself. I started a marathon training plan that has me running every single day. Just over 40 miles a week right now. My wife likes to point out that it doesn't have me doing any mountain biking, so by sticking to the plan and still riding several times a week, I'm way overdoing it. She's right, I'm sure. I married a smart girl. And beautiful too.
Anyhow, I had taken Saturday off from running. I was only scheduled to do an easy-paced three miler, so I wasn't too concerned with blowing the marathon schedule. My legs were rejoicing at not having run for a day. They may have thought they were on more of a hiatus than I was actually planning on giving them. The race started and we took off. I got beat up a little right in the beginning as my legs were a little stiff after having just gotten out of a three hour car ride with zero warm up. I went into the woods either third or fourth to last. As bad as that sounds, it’s actually altogether too commonplace for me. I’m a slow starter in better situations.
The Pinnacle, for the uninitiated, consists of a 5 - 6 mile loop done multiple times. It starts in a field and then heads up some double track, hits a bit of road and then starts climbing up a mess of double track and single track. The single track consists of countless switchbacks that make the climb seem pretty gradual. Some of the jeep road is a little steep and scrabbly. It is, after all, called The Pinnacle. Once you summit, you hit a really fast, fun single track downhill and then a little bit of climbing before you get some nice technical rocky trail followed by an awesome pump track. Once you get out of the pump track, you get the crème de la crème, a super sweet, flowy, downhill with giant bermed turns that bring you pretty much to the bottom. These berms are an absolute blast! Once you get just about to the base, you hit the Pinnacle Plummet – a heart-pounding descent that leads you to back to the field you started in and then back into the woods to do it all over again.
Anyhow, back to the race. Once I got my legs warmed up and working I managed to start grabbing some spots. It's a little tricky on the single track, although I have to say that a couple of the other Vet IIs were very cool and let me by. Pete was one of those guys. The jeep road was a lot easier to pass on if you could muster the go-get-‘em necessary for passing on it. The first lap, the climb was very tolerable, but seemed way too short. As it turns out, they cut out the top of the mountain for the Sport class in lap one. That also cut out one of the nice downhill sections. By the time I had reached the top (or as high as we would go) on the first lap, we had started to thin out quite a bit. I had passed a quite a few people by that time, maybe eight or so, and felt pretty good. I think I remember one person going by me where I had taken the single track beside the jeep road and he had gone straight up the jeep road. I had initially seen that as a mistake because it looked so loose and scrabbly, but that guy flew right on by. I didn’t sweat it though. He may have actually been the front runner of the group behind me. My next two times up I took the jeep road though.
The downhill was more fun than barrel of monkeys. There are a few rocks along the way that you can launch off from without too much risk and without losing any time. I loved those. And the bermed turns. I had somehow forgotten about those, or at least how flippin' fun they were. When I finally came out on the Plummet, there were two options. The left which is slower and safer or the right which is straight down. I chose the right.
Second lap I managed to grab a few more places. Legs were definitely reacting unfavorably to the climb the second time up the mountain, but I managed to keep going. This lap is where I realized that we had cut off the top on the first lap.
On the way down on lap two I was slowly catching up to someone in a green jersey with a circle pattern on the back. I’d pull close and then he would pull away. I kept reeling him back in until we hit the bottom and then as we got to the wide trail under the ski jump just before the Plunge I ramped it up and managed to pass him. I had to slow down just a hair going over the Plunge lest I launch myself to my untimely demise. I still had my rear wheel in the air as I flew over the lip, but managed to get the bike back on the ground and hang onto the gained spot as we started into the final lap.
I heard the guy I had just passed holding my tire for a little while as we climbed and I started thinking that maybe I was just down-hilling better than him and that he was going to make it up on the climb, but I fended him off and start pulling away. I heard him grunting quite a bit for a while and then he was just gone.
If my legs were belly-aching the second lap of climbing they were projectile vomiting until there wasn't anything left to vomit and then started dry-heaving for the third. Man oh man. I made it to the top for the final time and still had not dropped into the little ring up front all race!!
As I made my way down and into 
the pump track for the final time I caught up to the end of the novice group and there was a lot of working to get by folks. Again, everyone was super cool. I even received some much needed words of encouragement from a couple of people. I did get a little worried than someone had caught up to me when I kept hearing what sounded like Woody Woodpecker coming up behind me, but I think it was just one of the Novice riders having a little fun.
I became a little bogged down behind a couple of really young racers right at the end through the bermed turns and didn't get by them until the one in the rear dabbed. I finished strong.
Couldn't be happier with this race. The conditions were exponentially better than last year (when it wasn't raining but was still pretty wet from recent rains).
Managed to grab 7th out of
21 in my group. I finished in 1:44:18. Just over 14.5 miles all told and a max speed down the Plunge of 36.4 MPH. The five guys in front of me were all within three minutes, although the winner had me by about seven minutes. Behind me there wasn't another Vet II for over five minutes. In short, I guess I'm the slowest of the fast group. That ain't so bad.
Other folks I know did great in the race. Brandon O'Neal took third in the singlespeed open cat. Chris Beriau took third in expert Vet women. Steve Segenchuk took third in Expert Vet II men. Paul Simoes took seventh in the elite open. Pete Dunn took 13th in the Vet II sport men.
The best part? When I got home I still had a 14 mile run in front of me. Ugh.
No more races scheduled until the Vermont 30 in August now.
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