Phillips - WORS #7

Last week Cathy and I loaded up and headed out Wednesday right after work for a much needed vacation. Cathy's Aunt was having a 60th b-day party up at there place in Ely, MN...literally 10-12 miles from the Canadian border! Despite the incredibly long drive it was well worth the time to relax. After the party on Saturday we loaded up and headed down to Phillips. We got in kinda late so we couldn't pre-ride what turned out to be a pretty new course. Traditionally Phillips is mostly ski trails with some single track. This year was a lot more single track and made for a better race.
Sunday started with a hint of rain here and there, then cleared up and turned into a perfect day of racing. I was hoping to cherry pick a little at this race, I figured high gas prices, a long drive, and with Super Week it should be a smaller field. I was kinda right, we only had around 40 guys, but of that only 2 of the top 20 were missing, so much for an easy race. We hit the road lead out and I was sitting in a decent spot. I hung out with a group of 5 and each lap we lost 1-2 guys. On my 3rd of 5 laps I started to really hurt I hit a few clif bloks and doubled my water intake, all of the sudden the legs came around and the power was back. I got around a few guys and figured I had to be doing decent because I was lapping a ton of Comp riders. On the lead-in to the finish we were slopping through the only wet spot in the state of Wisconsin when a single speeder just flew past me! I tried to get on his wheel but he was on a mission, on the last hill I threw down an attack, and closed the gap. Once we were on the road he looked at me and said "I think you got me here". He was right, I grabbed a few gears and was gone. Despite having a full field I pulled out a season best 12th place over all and got on the podium again for my age group.
As I mentioned earlier we didn't get to pre-ride which was good because otherwise Cathy probably wouldn't have raced. The course was really rough and she was bouncing around a lot on the hardtail. She wasn't too excited to race but got out there anyhow and even though she didn't feel too good was able to hold a strong pace. She was going back and forth with a couple girls and was ahead of a few girls that normally put the hurt on. On the last lap a girl she was riding with crashed pretty hard, even though she didn't want to, Cathy used that to put a gap on her and was able to hold that for an....8th place finish!! After figuring out the points yesterday that is going to put her in 10th place overall, good enough for a call up at Calumet! This has been a tough season in a harder class but Cathy is really stepping up and throwing down some very solid finishes.
This weekend is 24-9, we are getting everything finalized. Cathy finally got her team plans together, she is doing a Co-ed 5 person 24 hour team. I have a few more night rides this week and then lots of rest. The plan this week is eat and sleep. I know I haven't kept this up todate, but I will get a few post this week leading to the race.
Out for now, Neil