OBRA Road Race

I did the OBRA Road Race on Saturday, State Championship. It was near Ranier, Oregon down river from Portland. I always forget, in between races, how hard races are. That's why I do them though. I know I would never ride that hard in training and I know that it's good for me. It was tough though. My race was two laps of about 16 miles each, 8 miles up hill and 8 miles down. My calves started to cramp just before the descent on the first lap. It was uphill to the finish and I didn't know if I could make it, on the first lap! I thought about the Lance Armstrong advertisement. Something about the pain will go away but if I quit it will last forever and decided to tough it out. I stopped and stretched and went on. My time was about the same on both laps even though I felt like I took it easier on the second.
I really need to lose weight if I want to keep racing. I was able to stay with the pack at the start but I got dropped on the first hill and never caught up. There was actually an age group for me, 60+. It wasn't any help though. I was last in my age group anyway. It was fun though.

My next race is a mountain bike race. Return on the Jedi near Grants Pass on June 28 and 29. I'm racing STXC on Saturday and XC on Sunday. I'm considering doing the Super D on Saturday afternoon because is would give me points in another discipline for the OBRA BAR competition. I didn't sign up for it yet though. Maybe three races in the weekend would be too much for an old, fat guy.