WORS Red Flint Fire Cracker

 So after missing the Wooley Race ealier this spring I thought I should get in a little XC racing while the Family was in town.  Eau Claire is now as far west as the WORS series gets in WI.......Maybe they should just call it EWORS.
I finally renewed my USAC license, just so I could ask nicely if I could do the open elite race even though I am still a Cat 2.  Not sure how that happened.  Once I got a geared bike, I just started racing in the elite class, and no one ever told me no, so I never actually got any upgrade points.
Long Story, short. Last row start. Everyone was super fast. I fell into the trap of going way too hard too early. My garmin was squaking at me constantly that my HR was too high (it was over 170 for the first lap).

I really wanted me some orange drank!

 I ended up giving up a bunch of spots as I was in damage control mode for the 2nd and 3rd laps.  On the last lap, Me and a Dude from Fond Du Lac made contact with a group of about 5. I noticed that Reece Oleson was doing all the work at the front, so I came around and told Reece to sit on, since the train of people was undoubtedly going to try to jump him once they hit the single track. Once we made it throught the totally gratuitous "bog of despair" I looked back and saw that the group had gotten a little strung out, and by the time we had hit the rock garden, I had a 5 second gap.  I tried to really make some hay then, and got a good 15 seconds at one point.  However, with less than 2 miles to go I could tell that there was some pretty serious divergence between my HR and power output.  My gap disappeared, I clipped a pedal and gave up 3 spots (I really wanted to finish 36th instead of 39th).  I even tried to sprint to the finish, and once we in the chute my leg cramped so bad I fell off the bike.
It is eye opening going to do the WI races. I was pleased with the effort but I know that I need to start getting some longer, high intensity efforts if I am going to keep playing with the big kids.

Then we got some family bike cleaning time.