playing in the dirt

Fun ride tonight at the weekly series. There is a awesome level of riders in our area and they all seem to swarm Hardwood Wednesday night. The course I was racing tonight had 71 riders. I'd say a third of them are ontario cup racers. I got a good warm up of 25 minutes with an average heartrate of 162.

Hardwood has the cruelest start of any place I've ever raced. Even that big climb at Mansfield isnt this mean. The first half km is wood chips and when its not wood chips its up hill on hay. Nothing like peaking the heartrate early. Like usual there are always a few young racers that go to hard right at the beginning and then start losing it in the first section of single track. Once past them it was pretty clear sailing. Finished the 10.1 km course in 32.22 and placed 8th. My legs felt great and got into my rythem about half way through the course.

Heartrate for the race was 181 average and spiked to 191.