Race Report: Battle the Bear

It was cold and lightly raining when I woke up early Saturday morning. (I was) Not exactly thrilled to embark on a race in such conditions (and) I was slow to get ready. I left ten minutes later than I had intended and had to cut my warm-up short. I arrived at the start line with only two minutes to spare before the start. Within seconds to the start we all heard thunder...(change... to ;) not what you want to hear starting a sixty mile race. It was about five minutes within the race when all of a sudden it started to downpour. In seconds the singletrack turned to peanut butter. The first climb my rear tire was spinning out, and by the second climb it turned into (a)cyclocross (race) because we all had to run our bikes up the hill. After a season of cyclocross the adverse conditions really didn't bother me too much and I intended to use it to my advantage. My legs were feeling pretty good and I was cutting through the racers ahead of me fairly easily. And then it all came to an abrupt end. About halfway through the lap the ranger was waiting on a road cross letting everyone know the race was canceled(cancelled). Bikes and racers were caked in mud, and everyone was freezing cold. Hours of bike maintenance and laundry for maybe thirty minutes of racing... yep, sounds like cyclocross to me! Oh well, it was for the best. The damage we did to the trails in a few minutes was already too much. The Battle of the Bear will have to wait until August when it will be rescheduled. I went home, took the hottest bath I could, grabbed a beer, and proceeded to cleaning my bike and clothing. With the race canceled (cancelled) my plan to take a recover(recovery) week turned into a hard week of training in preparation for the Bailey Hundo. Actually, this all works out great for me since the following week will now be a light week and I had intended on going out of town anyway. Plus, I was looking for a race to do in August anyway to break things up. Bailey Hundo, here I come!