Winona Lake DINO Race

Winona Lake’s singletrack is stellar, well built and maintained with endearing care. The trail is windy with tight twisty roots, sharp climbs/descents and when wet becomes one of the most technical trails we race. Our forecast did not look promising, but the rain that started a day earlier had stopped once we got into Warsaw on Saturday around 9:45am. This is one of my favorite races because our close (Warsaw native) friends drive down from Chicago with their children, they visit the grand-parents and come see the race. Before the race started a few of my racer friends who had tested the trail said there was rock garden that would cause issues and predicted a lot of racers will have to run their bikes through rather than take a risk of crashing. Prior to my warm up (below), curiosity got me and I tested it out this rock garden section of trail and sure enough it was going to put the hurt on some folks.

The race started out with a long 200 yard grass sprint to 180 degree turn and then a few hundred more yards of grass into the woods and onto the Winona Lake singletrack.

I got the jump on the start and led my competitors around the turn and into the woods.

The first few climbs were short, but scorchers and up next was a sharp left turn that lead up to the rock garden. I railed that turn fast and chose my line through the cantaloupe sized rocks, shifted my weight to the rear and muscled through them clean. In moments most of the pack was back on my wheel when we dropped into the valley where the trail ran parallel with the canal. I laid down the hammer here because I knew this part of the route would lead to a bridge that crossed over the water where the trail ran parallel, back the other direction and I could see across the canal which of my competitors would be chasing me down. The next 45 minutes were a blur because I was pushing myself into my max VO2 levels (highest lactic acid producing state) to create a gap and then began catching up with and passing racers from the heat that started 2 minutes prior to ours. I slowly picked most of them off and then a few of the open class racers as I kept pushing to increase the gap between the racers chasing me down. The second lap took us back through the fans lined by officials stand and to my left was my fiancée, friends and Chief (barking away) as I pedaled back into the woods. I wanted to shout "thank you", but a bow of appreciation was all I could muster as I gasped for air.

This second lap took even more effort because I was in a no man’s land as there was no one from my heat in front of me and I did not know how close behind they were so I had to keep pushing to retain my unknown lead gap. 1 hour and 48 minutes later I heard the announcer and the crowds while pedaling through the woods and back onto the grassy finish line very relieved that my first race was successfully completed.  Brian who runs DINO announced that I was recently engaged with perfect timing for Lindsay to hear over the PA!

Moments later it was confirmed that I had won the race and the crescendo of training, focus, commitment and learning had been validated.

A big loving thank you to my fiancee Lindsay who supports me in every way possible.

And thank you to my sponsors who are helping me race at this level: Team manage, brilliant coach, Cannondale, Spinzone and Cycleops!