Christian Tanguy, Stony Creek Marathon, Michigan, open men, 1st place

During the Independence Day weekend, the chase for points for the Michigan championship was on. The Stony Creek Marathon counts for double points depending on your position at the Brighton Stage Race. The trails there get ridden a lot and each year a new section of trail is added to let some worn out section heal. On the paper, the 6 laps of 10 miles do not look like much, in reality this is quite a challenge.




Due to the length of the event, the Elite Men category starts first at 10:00am, closely followed by all the remaining groups. At the start, it was already hot and humid. The trails were dusty from the lack of rain the previous week. For sure, the temperatures were going to rise up as the day went by.

A group of 5 riders was spun off in the fist mile. The pace was high enough that we had a gap on the pursuers but nobody was gasping for air. After all, there were still 5 more laps to go.

Prior to the start, I thought I would be waiting for the 3rd lap to increase the tempo before I try to shake things up. However, as I noticed that everybody seemed to be "too" relaxed, I decided to try everybody's legs (including mines) a lap earlier. I sped up in the little climb prior to the long single track section called the "rollercoaster". Immediately, the group reduced from 5 to 2 as only Greg Kuhn was able to stay on my wheel. In the following single track, Greg struggled a little bit and I was slowly pulling away from him. It was not a good thing since there were more than 40 miles to the finish and the second part of the lap has significant double track trails.

Drafting in the single track is inexistent, so I let Greg take the lead in the rollercoaster. Both he and I ride often the trails such that we could increase our gap while still saving some energy. Unfortunately, on the last turn, Greg washed out. We remounted our bikes and now I was back in the lead, pulling us on the double track. However, this little mishap was the opportunity needed by Steve Dempsey to bridge back.

On the third lap, I accelerated at the same location than on lap 2; but this time I managed to leave alone. I had a good rhythm, I felt strong both on the tight single track and the double tracks. The 3rd lap was completed quickly.

It was now noon and the sun was really pounding on us as soon as we were leaving the shaded wooded area. I could also notice that I was getting tired as I was not as smooth on the tight trails but the hardest for me was to find the motivation to complete another 30 miles as we were only half way.

The next 3 laps, I kept my speed as constant as possible, realizing that I was fading out anyway. I had no idea where everybody else was located. They could be right on my tail, minutes away or they could have left the race prematurely after an incident. It did not really matter and I kept pushing to the best of my ability to the finish.

I was a little bit surprised when I heard that I had almost 11 minutes over 2nd place. I really wished I knew before my last lap as I would have ease up the pace a bit. I crawled from the finish line to a picnic table where I laid down for several long minutes. My body was in much pain but I was very satisfied to have raced as hard as I could without holding back anything.

For the Michigan championship, it was a good operation as I come closer to Steve for the top spot. I am glad I could put Team CF in the spot light; another few races remains for the championship; I'll try to keep it up.