Well, the seventh and final race in the Ontario Cup series for this season has come and gone. This season definitely had its challenges, but I did realize many improvements in riding ability and fitness.
This season saw me with 3 top ten finishes with my best finish only 2:57 behind first place. For this last race at Woodnewton in Uxbridge I finished 10th at 4:30 behind first place. So what's the rest of the story...
We arrived Sunday morning at the venue to find overcast skies but the rain held off - at least for my race. I had a good warm-up and arrived at the start pen with about 10 minutes to post. As we began rolling up to the start line I picked my position behind the wheel of my nemesis. The gun went off (well, not really but it sounds better than 'Adam yelled GO') and we were away - I was right on the wheel of CSB down the long double track straight-away as we rounded the bend nearing the first hill we pasted a couple riders and a couple more on our ascent. We entered the first bit of single track and CSB gaped me but once exiting the single track we hit another hill and I had his wheel again. As we passed the half way point in the lap I was feeling good and so I attacked on the big double track hill and didn't look back. I never saw CSB during the race again. During my last lap I kept the pace as high as I could sustain and caught the rider in front of me. We played cat and mouse for the last few kilometres but I wasn't able to break away and he was able to dropped me just before the last single track leading up to the finish. I put a big push on to the finish line to come in 10th at just 40 seconds behind 9th place.
Looking back, it was a good race season - but plans for the upcoming off season are in the works to include a little more serious training. At this point, I'm looking forward to Crank the Shield and then some relaxed fall MTB and road riding to enjoy the fall colours. Thanks for spending your 30 seconds with Scott!
