Before the season began, I tapped the Hampshire 100 as one of my races to focus on this season and shapped my second block of training to peak around it and the Camden Run Off. Because of work and personal issues, that peak wouldn't be quite what I hoped for but I can honestly say that I was as prepared as I could be for suffering to endure.
The course is not ideal by many people's standards with some dirt roads, pavement, lots of double track, some buff single track and some "frontier" single track as the promoters called it. Basically, the frontier single track was flagged and cleared of brush and that was it. It was tough to follow in cases but if you payed attention to the flagging you were ok, plus the trail boss led out the race on his dirt bike so you could also see his impression in the ground. The race traverses lots of private land where access is only granted for race day so this set-up is key to linking sections together without inviting people to tresspass later in the summer.
Despite what I just wrote, overall I love the course. That's probably mostly because it mimics a lot of the riding I do around my house which is mostly boney double track and some non-ideal single track.
The course starts with about 10 miles of dirt roads and very fast 4-wheeler type trails. Conditions that definitely allows for (and necessitates) drafting for the first 1 hr +. With that in mind, while sitting at the staging area, waiting for our group to head out, I started looking to see who would be a good drafting partner. Unfortunately, I knew noone in our wave (except a guy, Shawn, I met the night before who had just moved up to expert from sport) so I wasn't sure who I'd be working with. I did know of one guy, Alec Petro, who was starting in the wave behind me who is super fast in this type of race (and beat me here last year and at the Winter XC, and the Pats Peak 6-hr etc etc) so I figured he would catch us shortly and I could try to grab his shirttails.
Off the start I was sitting second wheel through the first dirt road section. The legs weren't awake yet but I felt comfortable. Before long I decided to take a quick pull at the front to up the pace a bit. As I passed the lead rider I noticed he was breathing hard already but figured he would latch onto the back of the group. Once at the front I set into a nice tempo for a few minutes before checking on the status of our group. To my suprise, of the 10-ish guys in the group, only Shawn was left and we already had a gap of a couple hundred feet. I hadn't planned this, and had actually wanted to stay as a group for a bit, but decided to go with it since I was still feeling comfortable with our speed.
Shawn and I worked together for several miles and quickly started catching the waves in front of us. This was when we caught Tom Gosselin, an Independent Fabricators rider and the leader of the Expert S1 group. He latched onto us making it a 3-man paceline for a bit. After a few more miles of this, Shawn told me he was red-lining and would be dropping off the pace. I felt bad that he had worked so hard to stay with us but was thankful for the help in the early stages of the race. Soon it was just Tom and I picking people off left and right.
Not long after that, Alec (who start 1 minute behind my group) caught us (the only person to catch us all day) and we were a three man group again. We worked well together for several more miles of fast road and double track sections.
Eventually, we hit the dreaded 3 mile stretch of straight, sandy double track. The sand during last years race was so dry and soft that riding it was very taxing both mentally and physically. This year, with a bit of rain leading up to the race, the sand was more packed down but still tough going. Somehow, on one of my pulls, I opened up a gap on Tom and Alec. I hadn't intended to attack since there was a bit more road to come so I soft pedaled and waited for them to catch me. Still soft pedaling, I made it out of the sand aloneand cruised on the following road section as I waited for the other two. They caught me on a super steep dirt road climb that I was forced to walk. Alec was able to grind the climb and opened a bit of gap on Tom and I. Soon, the climb turned into a super washed out road and by the time we got to the top, Alec had a solid 30 second gap and I was an additional 30 seconds up on Tom. The group was shot and I regretted soft pedaling to wait for them. Live and learn.
Once to the top, I put my head down and dug in, intent on catching Alec since I knew he was my main competition for the overall expert win. I hadn't raced against Tom much but had usually come out on top in the short events so I figured if I focused on Alec I would be ok. As I crested yet another dirt road climb I noticed a church I didn't remember from last year's race. I didn't think much of it though since the course had a couple of different sections this year. I immediately started a long and somewhat steep descent. About 30 seconds down the hill I started to worry since I hadn't seen any course markings since passing the church. I thought about turning around but figured I was still on course. Once to the bottom of the hill, though, I realized that I had made a HUGE mistake. I came to a 4-way intersection with no course markings. If I were on course there would have been something. I swore under my breath, turned around and headed back up the (at least) mile long hill I had just descended to get back on course.
2 of 2 tomorrow.
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