I was hoping to somehow return to work since I ended my vacation a week early, but no such luck. Since I cover vacations mostly, those don't come on short notice very often. You don't see a lot of people out for sickness in the middle of summer so I was unable to find any work except for on the farm at home. We are just starting to see most of our produce start to come in at the end of June. We harvested our garlic before the trip and hung it to dry in our barn while we were away. It was ready when I got back so I prepped it for storage. We kept as much as we need for the next year, then decided to sell our extra for the first time ever. It was very popular and we sold out in about a week.
We had some nasty storms the week I returned. All rides were planned around checking the weather radar, which cut many rides short. Dina and I did some riding after one particular storm that did some damage in our area knocking down power poles and washing out many driveways into the street. The heat and humidity hurt me all week. I could really tell I had been out in cool Utah for the last two weeks. I skipped the Music City Crits race in the middle of the week as I felt depleted.
The weather started to clear up for the final weekend of June when the DINO Series moved to North Vernon, IN at Muscatatuck Park. This park was where I did my first DINO race back in 2016. I really like racing here. The trails are great and they let you camp in the field across from the start/finish area on race weekends. There are short track and downhill races on Saturday. This year they added kayak trips down the Muscatatuck River, as well as beginner rock climbing classes on the cliffs along the river. It's an all-around fun weekend.
We planned to pack in the fun for the full weekend, starting with the short track in the early afternoon on Saturday. It was a hot 91 degrees as I got ready for the race. I rode the first half of the XC loop for my warm-up, then spun around watching Dina's short track. She was in the second of three races. Her group was made up of Sport Men, Sport Women and Expert Women. There were nine starters total. Six were men, three were women. Dina had a good race and was able to hang with a group of the men. She had good gap over the other two females halfway through the race and was able to move out to a 48-second gap by the finish to grab the win.
I like this short track course as it has a good chunk of singletrack that descends slightly. There are enough corners that you can gain time through skills while also recovering. Then the very slight climb back up in the open field area is just 100% power. It's a straightforward course and very fast. My biggest concern today was the heat since it had been busting me since I came back from Utah. There were only three riders in the Elite/Expert Men group. None of the other Elite riders in contention for the DINO Series overall attended the short track. This is a great event and I hate seeing people pass on it. I would love to see points for the series added to this race just like in the SERC and GSC Series. It sure would make for some better racing and make the DINO Challenge really mean something.
Despite the race not having points, I raced it like it was for points. I wanted a win. I had not won all season and I did not want to be sitting in November with no wins like last year. Today was the day to chalk one up on the board. I felt strong in my warm-up, I just had to make sure I didn't go too deep early and get overheated. The start was fast as the other two riders wanted a win too. Justin Miller put in some big efforts early. I got gapped a little several times, but was able to keep him close. He was fast in the singletrack so I had a tough time making up time in the woods like I am used to. The attacks gapped the third rider and it quickly turned into a two-man battle. I tried to be as patient as I could. I knew I was strong on the power section. I could close the gap each lap Justin wasn't attacking me.
I stuck with my plan to not overheat early. I followed him for 19 minutes of the 30-minute race. At that point, I decided to not give him any rope on the next attack. I was able to follow quite easily this time and then put in an attack of my own while I knew he was hurting. I got a gap, which fueled me into going even harder. I put in three really hard laps. My legs felt so strong on the power section. All that training in Utah was starting to show. I had a 21-second lead after those three hard laps. After that, I just settled into a solid pace to finish it off. I continued to pull away, grabbing the win by 38 seconds. Despite several wins the last few years, I still feel like short track is not my thing so it always feels like a big accomplishment when I win one.
Dina and I then rode the second half of the XC course to scout the trail and spin out our legs. Then it was time to change as all of us were going out on one of the kayak trips in the late afternoon. The longer trip was full so we had to wait for the later trip which was a little bit shorter and did a different section of the river. We piled into DINO main-man Brian's van to shuttle to the put-in, where we waited for the longer trip kayakers to arrive to end their river time. The river was much different than what I expected to see on a river in Indiana. It cut down through the bedrock with cliffs confining the water in many places. We paddled through some sections and lazily floated others.
The trip was just short of four miles in length, taking us nearly two full hours to complete. We were some of the first to arrive at the take out point. The others were not too far behind. Once they all arrived, we carried our kayaks up the bank to the road where the van and trailer awaited. Everyone helped Brian load the trailer and we were quickly on the road for the short trip back to the park. It was a really nice float and I hope to be able to do the other portion of the river next year. We finsihed setting up our tents in the festival camping area, then got showers in the main campground before cooking dinner and hitting the sack. Tomorrow was going to be another hot day with much more race time.
At 9am on Sunday it was already 80 degrees and very humid for Indiana. I could tell right away in my warm-up that I had good legs so I kept my efforts low to try to keep my body temperature as low as possible before the start of what would be a long, hot race. Yesterday's short track went well, but I was still nervous about how my body would react to racing in the heat. The riders showed up today. We had 12 in the Elite Men for four laps of racing on this loop that was about six miles in length. My start was not great, but not terrible either. It's a short, fast dash in the grass for the start here at Muscatatuck before a good amount of descending in the opening singletrack section. I hit the woods in 8th. The singletrack was chaos, filled with people having mechanical issues and crashes. I got held up multiple times in the opening two descents. The leaders already had a good gap on us as we crossed under the park road into the second section which features most of the loop's climbing. I had to go harder than I wanted on the climbs. I knew I was probably going to overheat, but I had to close this gap now. I moved up to 5th then crossed a gap to catch 4th by the top of the last climb in this section.
The leading three were still up ahead, but I knew I had to back off and try to cool down. I stayed in 5th, just following the rider ahead and trying to get my body recovered. I thought I was doing better when we started lap 2, but as soon as we started climbing I was overheated. I had to slow down, falling off the wheel in front of me. It was very hard to let that wheel go, but I was getting way too hot now. I fell back to 7th by the end of lap 2. I was begging for cold water to dump on my head, but nobody along the course had any. We were out of ice ourselves so Shannon had to track down a hydrant to get water that was even remotely cool. She got it to me at the end of lap 3. At this point, I was in survival mode. I had dropped to 8th and was literally just riding along trying to finish. Several Expert riders had already run me down and I couldn't even begin to get onto their wheel when they went by. The cool water definitely helped and I was able to pick up the pace. I didn't pick up any positions, but I did catch a few of the Experts that had come by. Then I missed my final feed and ran out of water. I ended the day in 8th. The heat destroyed me. What a waste of good legs. I vowed after this race to never be caught without ice again.
Dina tolerated the heat much better than me. She had another good day and took home 2nd in the Expert Women. She was happy to get on the podium again and feels she is getting a bit closer to the top riders in this series.
The following Wednesday was an extra-fun night at the Music City Crits Series. The third round of the series fell on July 3. With most people not having to go to work the following day it was a bit more rowdy both on and off the track. We had 32 riders in the Pro/1/2/3 on the fast kidney bean course. I had ridden very slow the past two days to try to recover from the meltdown at Muscatatuck. It was yet another hot day and I was still feeling like I was not adjusted. I held back in my warm-up to keep my body heat down so I was not sure exactly how I was feeling when the race got underway. I actually had good legs and stayed up front early. I was scared of going into a break as I felt like I couldn't hold the pace for more than a lap or two before the heat would get to me. I only followed one move early on, spending most of my time just staying out of trouble and watching. I tried out some new tires tonight which felt WAY better than what I have been racing on. These tires rolled noticeably faster and were also very supple. I didn't think that would be very helpful until the first time we came through the left-right turn before the finish line. There are many cracks in the pavement through the right turn portion of that chicane and these tires just smoothed it right out almost like the cracks weren't even there. I could not believe the difference.
The watching part ended up causing my demise as I let too many riders get up the road ahead of me. Several small breaks merged into one big break and I found myself chasing in a second group. Our group shrank with each passing lap until there were only four of us left chasing. Our group was then pulled at four laps to go even though the group trying to lap us was only around 15 riders. Again, I felt like I wasted a good leg day.
Dina kept her string of great races going, coming in 6th overall in the Women's race. The Cat. 4/5 Women really put up a fight this week taking 4th-7th places. Dina was 3rd out of the Cat. 4/5 riders so she got on the podium.
We spent most our July 4 on two wheels. My parents invited us up to their campsite on Lake Barkley for some grillin' and chillin' time. Dina and I decided to ride up there which is about 76 miles. It would be one of Dina's longest rides ever. Things went well until about halfway. A big storm appeared in the distance. The wind picked up and blew straight in our face. I hit the front for about 30 miles in the middle of the ride in an effort to pick up the pace and beat the storm. We did manage to get around it, but I hurt Dina in the process. Fortunately, my Dad rode out to meet us on the scooter to pace us for the final 22 miles. Dina was bonking and only able to draft at a low speed. I rode ahead of them and ended up doing a TT effort the last 20 miles. Dina had a resurrgence after eating a bit and my Dad was able to draft her back up toward me in the closing miles. I could see them coming with about three miles to go and I had to kick it up to over 25 mph for those final miles to hold them off to the end of the ride. It was a hard effort, but I had the legs to do it. This was probably the best endurance ride I have done in a long time. Efforts like that make burgers and chicken taste even better when they come off the grill.
