Bohart Bash

Hello from the Break espresso, it is sunny and nice outside. I am enjoying a cup of joe and a snickerdoodle. Unfortunately the day old cinnamon rolls are gone so I had to do a snickerdoodle. I just got back home last night from the Bohart Bash Mountain Bike Race . It was the best race I have been at so far but actually one of the worst results of the series for me. I got home last night at 5:30 and crashed. Waking up at 5a.m. it was all I could do to lock the car up before going back to sleep. Now I am awake and ready to go.

It all started Saturday morning when I woke up 1 hour after the alarm went off. I was already an hour late. I had to be at the race by 8 am to register and it was 5 am. I was supposed to pack Friday night but had a beer and chips instead finally falling asleep at around midnight. The stress at work played a part in this.

I was on the road and hammering down I90 at 6. It seems that I got behind every driver from hell and all I could grab for breakfast was a bag of pretzels. I reacted the Rock Creek turnoff just as the sun came up right into my vision. I almost hit a hitchhiker as the road was impossible to see. I hammered on in hopes that I wouldn”t miss the registration.

Just off of Pipestone Pass I hit construction and it was bad. 35 miles an hour for 10 to 15 miles. This added to my tardiness. Once back up to top speed I decided that if I did not drive 90 miles an hour I would miss the race. So I hammered on.

At 8:30 I reached Bozeman and immediately got lost. All seemed hopeless as I headed back into town after being on the wrong access road. I had never been to Bridger Bowl. Oh well, this is the first season. I was sure I had missed the race. Finally I found myself leaving Bozeman heading north to the ski area. It was quite a ways out of town but the scenery was astonishing. Definitely the most majestic venue so for a race.

I made registration 20 minutes before the start of the expert race. I had forgot my number plate and lost my NORBA racing license, still I had hopes of being in the race. After talking to officials they confirmed that I was indeed William Martin age 40 ready to race expert. I was in.

The race start was different that previous races and why not, this is the Montana Series. It was a la mains start (I may have misspelled that). We ran across a biathlon shooting range to our bikes before mounting and starting up the first climb. That started the ol heart rate into the hellish threshold area. There was no pre riding the course so the first lap was an introduction to the coarse for me.

There was some climbing in this race but what made it hard was the short but steep sections. There were about 5 of them and slowly they took their toll as on my last lap I had to fight from passing out. The sun was out and it was getting hot. The day was beautiful, dusty, and a great day for a race.

I gave it my all and had thought that I had done well. After finished came the familiar heat stroke session and with it came the thought that I must have done well. After all I kept my heart rate perfectly under the anaerobic threshold until the end of the race. I gave it everything and waited to see the results.

As the results were posted I was not too surprised by the 11th place finish so I looked at the ages to see f I beat my peers. I had not in fact came in 5th in my age category. That sucks and to make it worse I was 30 minutes from the main pack. I am currently trying to figure out what went wrong. Again, stress from work has to be taking its toll.

The race itself was awesome. Free micro brew, live music, and pizza. Also the swag was awesome. Free socks and cool water bottles were plenty. The course was fantastic and full of twisty single track. A great venue under the Bridger range with great weather. It was the greatest race I have been to in a long time and if my results would of been better it very well could of been the best time ever.