Suffer Springs Summer Soltice XC MTB Race

Summer Soltice after a week of rain, combined with a weekend full of race events had many smiling faces at start lines around the Calgary area. While several Speed Theory racers were participating in Banff Bikefest, I decided to represent at the Deadgoat Suffer Springs Summer Soltice Mountain Bike race. This race is held on Sulpher Springs trail at Station Flats in Kananaskis, and this is the 23rd year.

The race began at 10am sharp andmy category had to do one lap, at full speed, with 425m of elevation gain, mostly in the first half, for 12.5km. I had very low expectations of the race, and woke up thinking I was going to DNS due to IT band pain from running the Kananaskis 100 relay on Saturday. I had the toughest leg in our group, running Leg 5 along Highway 40 up Highwood Pass for 17.6km and gaining 450m of elevation.
>Thanks to wearing compression tights immediately after the run on Saturday, right through to the race on Sunday, I somehow found a way to “dig deep into the suitcase of courage”, and start and finish therace. This was my favorite XC race so far, because they started the men and the women together, which gave plenty of people to push you, and chase. The first part of the climbing I thought I was toast, as I watched people slowly get out of my sight. People started to catch up to me, and pass me…finally I had enough, and wasn’t letting that happen anymore. My legs opened up, and I was able to pass those that passed me and play a game of chase to the finish line placing me in 3rd. I can think of several quotes from Phil Liggett, had he been on the course that day.

Deadgoats did yet another fantastic job of putting on a great race, and had some awesome prizes for everyone that stuck around after the race. I got more than my entry fee back on Sunday not only with some sweet prizes, but some delicious dogs on the BBQ, sunshine, happy faces, and a really cool wooden goat head trophy for my podium finish. I highly recommend this race next year!