The past two weekends have been pretty good to me as I traveled from the outside finger of the Michigan mitt too the wilds of Northeast Philadelphia.
Stop number 3 on the National Ultra Endurance series tour took me to Manistee Michigan for the third time to race the Lumberjack 100. This race gets a lot of moaning thrown in it's direction. Maybe people think it betrays the constructed rules of 100 mile racing because it's a....can you believe it?...a . a Lap Race. 25 miles of pure flowing trail, short and punchy, knuckle dragging climbs. It usually starts dragging after the 2nd lap. At that point most riders have been riding above their head for 3-5 hrs, having too much fun while thinking that this trail is pretty easy. Sure it doesn't have long climbs or rocks to suck out the energy, but it's that lack of features that lull you into a false sense of security. Before you know it you've been hammering for way too long and that tent or car with all your stuff in it starts to look real tempting.
Fortunately I brought my Mother along to so support and give me the BS eye in case I wanted to take a break. The face of the competition was it's usual bloated self, full people like Eatough, Schalk, Plews and Tanguy, so I had to be on guard. I was actually excited about the high volume of single track, since I figured I might have an advantage over the people who preferred wide open climbs and road sections. This was definitely a course that favored good handling skills. The first lap was fast but not to blistering. A group of 8 of us got off the front and we rolled the wooded track like it was a fast group ride, the train was in full effect. Coming into the start of the 2nd lap I made my first acceleration. I wanted to get away and push the limits on the corners and punch it up the short climbs. I played the game of listening for other riders' brakes, and staying off mine. The NanoRaptor 29er tires handled the corners like a bailiff handles the accused. I freaking love my Ti 29er deluxe. It corners so great. The pressure worked to shake us down to 5 riders. Eatough, Schalk, Plews, Tanguy and me. The rest of lap 2 was pretty uneventful, besides one blown corner everything was pretty smooth.
Coming into lap three I decided to take the initiative again and repeated the same attack in the first 8 mile section that I tried in lap 2. It was mirror image of the first attack but by the end of it we were down to just three. Eatough and Tanguy fell off, which left just Schalk, Plews and myself. So by the end of the 3rd lap I was having a little physical breakdown. Nutritionally inspired I ate a bunch of gel, slowed it down for a bit, and lost track of Schalk and Plews. Now I was focused on just staying in front of Eatough, and maybe moving back up. After a bit of recovery and never being sure where the Eatough was I was able to pick the speed back up. When I figured Eatough was going to catch me, started saying to myself that he wasn't here yet so keep the pace up.
In the end I was 3rd, 4 minutes back from 1st place Schalk, and 4.5 minutes up on Eatough. I was pretty happy with that gap after 7 hours of racing. I definitely feel as if I'm starting to come back into form. Overall a good race, despite the 11 inches of rain two days before, and the fact that the town of Manistee was shut down without electricity for a day.

Neshaminy short XC

So finally I had a weekend where traveling for multiple days wasn't required. Neshaminy is only about 20 miles from my house, which meant I could ride there if I wanted to. Which I did twice during the week. It was a course where pre-riding paid off in dividends.
I have to admit I was on a bit of a revenge mission after the last Mid-Atlantic Series race where I showed up late and everyone was already on the start line. My mojo blown at that one, I was determined to build it back up for this one. In some cosmic alignment this course had a similar feel to the Lumberjack. Fast course, blind corners and short punchy climbs. It was definitely a more technical course, but the formula 1 skills were important. Advantage was mine since I had ridden the course twice already during the week. I was worried because the second time I rode there was the day before on a 5.5hr ride from home. It was hot, and I wasn't sure how my legs were going to hold up.
Start gun had us plowing through a field, and I went into the track third in line. By the time we had finished the 2 mile prolouge, I was one spot up in 2nd and as we came through a short field section I edged around 1st to get back into the single track first. From that point on I played the no brake game, took the lines smooth and very slowly rode Wes off my wheel. The course was most brutal because of the lack of places for recovering. The heat helped keep the Heart Rate up and at one point I saw a 194 HR. For me that's outrageous when compared to 100miler outputs.
Enough of the numbers. So racing went on, Topher's girlfriend did righteous bottle feeds, and i watched as young buck Aaron Snyder crept up on me. I let off the gas a tad to recover and when he came up to my rear wheel, I pushed the pace back up. Fortunately that was enough to watch him fade back as slowly but surely at the speed at which he crept up. I punched the last couple of climbs, put the nail in the coffin and rolled across the finish line 20sec up on Snyder.
It was a good race, just my style and I felt a little vindicated after the last MASS race.

This weekend is a short race, then I'm off for three days of Tour De Burg in the middle of next week, then cap the weekend off with the three day Marysville stage race. Thennnn I'm going to CA for the Downieville Classic. And Then....Mt Snow, National Championships.

Hopefully I'll be doing this in two weeks.