2019 Little Su 50k

Wow what a finish!

Congrats to Jason Lamoreaux for winning the 50k. Nice job rebounding from the late ride running sprints!

A couple weeks ago I strained a muscle in my hamstring and decided to see how it was feeling. I started with the lead pack, stayed with the guys on the hills and had some strong pulls on the front. I would say that it's pretty much back to operating strength.

The race was pretty calm through the first 20+ miles. I told myself that I would ride the first 10 miles with the lead pack and re-evaluate how I felt and whether or not I should back off the effort or continue to race. I found I was not suffering on the hills to keep the wheels of Oliver Sternicki, Eric Flanders and Jason so I motored on. We were pretty much on our own until James Stull covered the gap after getting hung up in traffic at the start. Then, Mike Crawford covered 2 or so minutes after the water stop and caught the pack by the power line. Nice job guys!!!

After turning off the power line, I could tell the pace was starting to pick back up. Eric, Jason, Oliver and I were getting strong pulls at the front. No doubt because we didn't have to cross the gap that Mike and James did.

Things got a little interesting after the Gnomes. A few of us developed a little gap which was perfect. I think we knew that it was going to be really difficult to pass someone at this point because the snow was starting to soften the trail conditions.

I was pretty confident in my position and my choice of tires and wheels. I have been using my 4.8" Husker Du's and 100mm HED rims with Hadley hubs for a good part of the year. They roll really well and have lots of air volume.

Jason, Eric and I started to get a little gap and I was thinking that we were going to get a strong pace going. We approached the railroad crossing and to our surprise we dropped down the other side and found ourselves on the wrong trail! Eric, Jason and I ran through knee deep snow back on course and did a cyclocross remount and started to hammer! I felt really good that I could hang with Jason's wheel after that. We quickly caught back up to James, Oliver and Mike.

Bummer, we lost our positioning in the pack. Instead of 1st-3rd we were now 4th-6th. This was going to be challenging. :-P The good part was that the pack had slowed down a bit allowing us to recover a little bit from catching back up.

Now here comes the fun part! Within a mile or so of the finish we caught one of the dog teams taking some visitors from Happy Trail Kennels! That never happens! The pack basically piled up behind the sled. I heard some folks talking back and forth with the musher and all the sudden the team stopped right in the trail! It was a mad house. All the sudden our $$$$ fat bikes were just getting pushed through knee deep snow again and were were in an all out sprint to get around the musher and his team.

This really broke us up this time. Oliver went to the right and was able to re-mount quickly, Jason and I made good time through the snow and remounted quickly. James was right behind me, then Eric and Mike.

James is really good at putting in accelerations and recovering quickly and that is something I'm not trained as well in. I tried as hard as I could to cover the small gap to Jason and Oliver but just couldn't cover it the whole way. I pulled over because I knew James could give those guys a go and I just settled in for a fourth place finish.

In the end, it was Jason, Oliver, James, myself, Eric and then Mike. Boy what a finish! I had a blast and it really pumped up my confidence going into Iditarod Trail Invitational next week.