Rocket Racing: Weekend winnings

This weekend had a lot of racing going on, too much to do it all for sure. Some weekends there is not a lot to choose from, This was not one of those weekends... Saturday was a 5K/10K Trail run a friend was hosting and a 3/6hour MTB race, Sunday was the MO State Championship Crit and the MO Single Speed MTB championships... choices choices

Nothing works without awesome volunteers

Saturday's choice was easy as it was the inaugural Hillsdale Harrier Hustle trail run my good friend Jeremy put on in honor of his dad who passed away after a long battle with cancer. I lost my father earlier this year and there was no way I was going to miss this event. Loaded up the kids and headed down super early on what was an absolutely beautiful morning with temps in the upper 60's.

Tori testing the hill

Chia-Ru was running her first 10K and Karen was running the 5K (just for fun since she can't compete during her cross country season at school). Nate, Tori and I set out on the course to one of the nastiest hills to cheer/help the runners, it was pretty steep and all torn up from the horses. The race was a very technical run with tons of rocks, roots, loose footing, horse hoof holes and plenty of steep run ups.

83 years young!!!

Karen on the hill

Karen was the first female up the hill and she went on the be the fastest runner in the 5K. She is not in form yet since she just is getting back into running after her killer MTB racing season but ran a solid event non the less. Chia-Ru was a few seconds back and running strong.

A little while later this young lady on the left came up the hill, I think she was in her 80's if I heard correctly. I love to see people out and moving and she was a real inspiration to others. She won a free message for her efforts as well!

Chia-Ru took 1st in her age group and 3rd overall in the 10K. Jeremy and all the volunteers did a great job on this event and the course was challenging, put it on the calender for 2012 folks.

6 Hour Overall Podium

Later on Saturday the kids and I jumped on our MTB's and rode through town over to Swope Park where the 3/6 hour Spoke Pony Showdown MTB race was underway. Ethos teammates killed the course taking several podiums. Travis won the 6 hour solo, Jesse won the 6 hour solo single speed, Sarah won the 3 hour women, Sean took 3rd in single 6. Swope is a real MTB course and throws a lot at you and there were some casualties for sure... Kevin and Garet DNF'd and Garet broke his frame on that super fly Sworks Epic 29er in one a his spectacular crashes and is now in the need of super carbon fixer guy Mark Girod. Ethos rocked it once again, results here.

Saturday night was a real treat as well, Chia-Ru and some of her friends get together and do a pot luck of sorts where the food is all this amazing authentic asian fare. We ate so much it hurt to breathe and the food was amazing, I really do miss the fresh foods from my Taiwan trip last year and this was as close as I will get until I go back.

Sunday was and easy choice as well, the kids all wanted to race in the MO State Crit. Up super early again and rolled out to Jeff City for the 9am junior race start. Chia-Ru and her friend came along to cheer us all on. The course was pretty fun to ride as it went around the state capital building and had a few climbs and hills to make it a decent race.

Tori, Nate and Karen all racing at 9am, first time they have all raced together in a crit and this was Nate's first crit. It's a pretty awesome feeling to have all the kids racing together. They had a blast and did pretty darn good bringing home 5 medals (2 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze) and a state championship jersey. Nate was really hapy finishing 3rd of 5 in the junior boys for his first race. Tori raced really strong and beat a boy that just last week lapped her! Karen raced just fast enough to win and was saving up for her first women's open race which was going to be fast and hard.

Kids brought the hardware home!

I decided not to race since I was feeling not so great after cheating on my paleo diet the night before so decided to just sit in a watch the races. Lesson learned, once you go off all dairy, beans and grains don't go back (bloated pig feeling!).

Karen's open women was as not until 2pm so we hung out watching the races. During the masters 40/50+ race an older man wandered onto the course after the pace car came through and in the middle of the course after turn one. Evidently one of the racers hit him hard and went down on his shoulder which ended up red flagging the race while the ambulance rolled in to get him up as he was out cold for a while. Where were the corner marshals or fans to keep this from happening?

Good sized field for Karen's race.

Women's open race had a good size field, definitely the biggest field K-Rocket has raced in on the road and there were lots of really fast women that showed up. The first 40 minutes of the 50 minute race were lots of small attacks but the field would not let anything go off the front and kept the pace pretty fast the entire race. Karen raced really well and was able to stay in the pack the entire race then got shelled in the field sprint up the hill and down the straight away. With 6 laps to go one girl launched a massive attack and stayed out front for the solo win. Karen was very happy finishing in the field sprint in her first open race.

Meanwhile Garet was racing his other bike, the single speeded kind and pulled out the Win in the MO State Single speed race, nice work. Results here.