Looking forward to the weekend

I can't believe it's almost Friday. I've had some awesome rides this week, and am hoping for more of the same this weekend in El Paso. I'm headed over to the Coyote Classic in my ol' stomping grounds in the Franklin Mountain State Park. Everything I've heard so far is that the XC course is really knarly now - I can't wait.

I did two days of climbing this week. Between the two, I got in 5k of climbing including the Sunrise climb (1k vertical feet up in under 2 miles) on my Bullit. There was a wind at my back, but just the same it is 41 pounds of bike. I felt so good the whole climb. A few sections I was actually surprised to look down and see how low my HR was! Then, there's the descent. I swear that the Sunrise descent into Hidden Hills is one of the most fun decents I can think of. Since it was a weekday, there were only a few hikers on the mile and a half descent. It qualifies for my newly created Perma-Grin Trail Award. Sweet, sweet stuff...

Anyhow, my goal for this weekend is to put in a solid performance. This'll be my first XC race of the year, so I don't quite know what to expect out of my body. Based on last week's race, this should be right at the limit of race-pace riding that starts to get to me, so I should feel strong for the whole race. With as much racing as I have planned over the next month, I'm shooting to have enough in me for another short loop (8 miles) if not the whole 28 mile course again, but I still want to keep a good pace. It's a fine balance between giving just enough and leaving it all out on the course and I'm still working on finding that for my body. In the NMORS the Expert 19 - 29 category is lumped in with the pros, so this'll be a points race for me, not a podium finish race.