I apparently have a knack for only racing Peak2Peak in perfect race conditions because last year was horrible weather (30F and sleeting) while both 2017 and this year's edition offered 60's, sunny, and perfect course conditions. Lining up in the front of a 23 man crew of Expert 40-44 year olds, I was optimistic that the day would go well. I'm still learning how to be aggressive enough at the start without putting myself in the red for too long or doing too much of the work early on. In this race, I found myself in what I thought was a comfortable spot until we hit the gravel road where I lost track of who was in my age group and who was in the 35-39 year old group that we had caught in the single track. I'm also not sure that it would have mattered as the pace down the gravel road that first lap was so high that I wasn't able to simply make my way up to the front, anyway. In addition, I was humbly reminded that the hill at the end is was not my friend. It's a beast and not easy on big guys.

At the end of the race, I placed 4th in my age group with 1-3 separated by two seconds; three and a half minutes ahead of me. I haven't done the analysis, but I'm guessing the lion's share of that gap came from the last hill each of the 3 laps. No podium, but my overall time was pretty solid and should fuel my motivation going in to Iceman (exactly two weeks after P2P).

On the video side, I did mount and carry a rear camera. However, failing to check that it was on resulted in zero footage being recorded so that camera just came along for the ride :( The front footage was shot on my older GoPro Hero Session's that I mount side-by-side to capture ~1:40 with the first camera before switching to the second camera.

Enjoy some of the commentary during the race, including my conversation with Chris, the rider I raced with most of the 2nd and 3rd laps, about a teammate and other locals that I knew would be coming up behind to help out with some pulling :)