The last couple of weeks have been very hectic, but I will start with the Stonewall Farm race since that was the next race after Hodgesville Dam. Stonewall Farm is an excellent place to hike and bike. They even have a cool nature center like area with backpacks that contain binoculars and pamphlets that can be taken out to enjoy the outdoors. The course consisted of two 13 mile laps. I decided to use a camelback and water bottles because I thought the laps would be a bit over an hour and was worried about dehydration after the Hodgesville Dam race. In the end it was not necessary since it was an unusually cool day and some rain moved in not too long into the race.
The organizers started every one in the pro and cat 1 groups together. We were still grouped by age, but there were no time intervals between the age categories. The start of the race crossed a road less than a half mile into the course, and organization wise, it was easier to have every one cross the road at once. The course had a good setup for this type of start because the first couple miles were up, up, up, and did I mention up? It was a great climb that took about a half hour to complete with very few flat areas. It was on a dirt road, then to a fire road and finally double track. I tried to stay behind Mike and see if I could keep up with his killer climbing ability, but slowly fell back as all the pros put the power down on the upper part of the climb. I sat in second in my group, and was able to catch up near the last half of the lap. I did not have the climbing ability, but I was able to descend very well. The last mile and a half was on a flat bike path so the leader and I took it easy since there was very little point in laying down any type of acceleration on the flat. I tried to hang on on the up hill but again he pulled away and I tried to catch him on the downhill again, but he was just out of reach. A second place was a great confidence booster going into Windham.
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