We ran a skeleton crew this time around, with Sam, Kai and myself (Shane) making the long, 4.5 hour drive to Southern Oregon to Sam Brown Campground, which is located between Grants Pass and Merlin, OR. The drive went very smoothly with minimal traffic and beautiful views galore!
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| Our spot for the weekend. |
When we arrived, it was getting dark, so we hastily put the tent up and got the beds made so we could get a good nights rest before the next day's adventures. After the long drive, I wanted to spin my legs out, so Kai and I let Sam go to bed and we took off with a headlamp for a ride on the infamous Jedi trail. This ride also had another objective, to see if I was ready to race. Some insight - I had gotten sick right after Sister's, was able to seemingly fend it off, but then the bug, coupled with some allergies came back and decided to hole up in my upper chest, giving me two very tough options:
- Race - Everything would blow out and I'd be fine -OR- I'd suffer and make myself much sicker.
- Rest - Suffer all weekend having to watch Sam and all my friends have a blast racing on a course that absolutely love.
Compounding this decision was the fact that I had two weeks of rest, with no racing the next weekend AND Jedi was a good opportunity to add some series points for the Oregon XC Series. GRRRR!!!
Thankfully, the ride helped me decide, as we easily pedaled up the trail I was fine, but any slight effort and I could feel my chest and lungs wanting to tighten up. Frustratingly, I made the call to not ride for the weekend, well at least Saturday....maybe I'd feel better on Sunday?! Haha.
Saturday morning we awoke to another gorgeous, sunshiney day and I found myself in an odd position, running support and nothing else. The tough part is trying to fill the huge shoes that Sam made last year helping me out so much, but I tried my darndest! We cooked up a nice breakfast of poached eggs and toast, I did a quick once-over on Sam's bike and she was off warming up for the morning's short track race. With Jedi, the fields tend to be a bit small on Saturday, but thankfully for Sam, some solid competition showed up in the form of our friend Annie. This created a battle royale throughout the whole weekend, pushing Sam past her previous limits, it was awesome to watch! The STXC race was intense and Sam put together a solid race, finishing right behind Annie for 2nd place.
Afterwards, we snagged a quick nap in the warm sunshine before we were on the bikes again, this time riding up to the start of the time trial formatted Super D, taking place on the Jedi Trail. A Super D is a cross country style trail where the finish is lower than the start, but there are uphills within the section of trail. The Time Trail format meant that racers would go off one at a time every 2 minutes. Sam felt this would be a fun opportunity to gain some coaching/insight on riding so I came along to guide her through this particular race. She said no holds barred, so you can imagine how brutal I was....haha...yeah right! I sat on her wheel and bombarded her with a constant stream of instructions - "STAND UP!, SHIFT DOWN!, SIT!, PEDAL PEDAL!, etc". It was awesome cause I've never seen her shred a trail that hard, she rocked it! I was so proud!
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| Sam preparing for the Super D. |
We got back to camp, ate some pasta and then took a 'nap' which ended up being about 4 hours, so we woke up for a quick snack, a fire, and then hit the hay again for some much needed rest.
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| Hooray for the warm glow of a campfire! |
Sunday morning came, a bit brisker than the previous day, but still a good one. I stuck with my difficult decision to not race the XC, in hopes of letting my body get some faster recovery. I helped Sam get all ready and then went down to the start line to cheer her on as she rode away onto the epic Jedi XC course. She put in a solid effort, finishing in 2nd place, once again, beating a good chunk of the CAT 3 Men in the process!
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| Sam rocking the hardware! |
Tired from a long weekend of racing (Sam) and recovering (Shane), we headed home to the high country with a quick stop at Phil's Frosty in Shady Cove for some superb milkshakes and good, greasy food!
Last weekend was our infamous Trinity Bikes Fat Tire Criterium, we'll be posting some photos and a quick little write-up later this week! We're super excited for next weekend's race, Alsea Falls XC, which doubles as the OBRA State Championships!
-Shane Johnson
