Result: 4th place
Equipment: BMC Fourstroke with Maxxis Aspen 2.2" front tire and Continental Raceking 2.2" rear
Type of race: XCM (marathon), 72 kilometers. Fourth race in the Swedish Marathon Cup
Getting up early in the morning
This race is 720 kilometers from where I live. All the years that I've raced it I've always driven up the day before and stayed in a hotel. This time I thought I'd' try something new: I packed that car the day before, went to bed early, and got up at 2 in the morning (or at night perhaps?) and drove up to Rättvik. I got there at 08:30, 1.5 hours before race start. I actually felt good. Warming up I didn't feel tired or worn out in any way.
Start climb
This race has a long hill to climb at the start which is exactly what I like. It takes me about 8-9 minutes. I checked my Strava data and I didn't get my fastest time ever up the hill (I've done this race about 5 or 6 times) but it was okay. I did however afterwards notice that my heart (rate) flipped out towards the end of the climb and that I had about a minute of around 200bpm. This has happened to me before over the last few years and it seems okay.
First downhill
It had started to drizzle a bit just before the start and also during the race and this first downhill had some wet roots. I was a bit too careful and lost placing here, and more importantly, I lost my group. At the bottom, where the track turns to gravel roads, I was all alone. I slowed down and allowed a BIG group to catch up. This cowardice during the descent did however piss me off and I was rather disappointed at myself. It's weird because as the race progressed and I got more into "race mode" all the rest of the technical riding went great and I was quick. There were quite a few crashes during the race due to a lot of wet roots but I had no problems.
Group riding
This race has tons of quick double track, gravel roads and even asphalt in the middle part. It's really important to have a good group to hang with. And I was lucky enough that the guys who caught me were some 40 riders. HUGE group. The tempo was high and I realized that this was optimal for me at this point in the race. I think we caught most of the riders who had overtaken me in the first downhill.
Moving on up for the singletrack
After some 30k of this riding in the huge group I saw the terrain started to change. I knew there was technical single track coming up so when I had the opportunity I moved up towards the front of the group. I actually got all the way up to leading the group and it was totally a fluke but I got there just before we moved onto some technical singletrack. I couldn't believe my luck!
I decided to push hard and try to stay in the lead as there's an advantage of being first in technical terrain with being able to chose your own lines and pace and also the disadvantage of not being able to wheelsuck is not so great.
There were some shorter climbs and on each one I pushed hard in order to try to get more of my opponents to drop off the back. After 20k of this kind of riding I looked back and there were just some four or five of us left in the group. One of the guys, number 503, was however in my category so he was someone I had to worry about.
The finish
With about 10k to go number 503 upped the pace and however much I tried I was not able to follow. I kept up the pace and no one else caught me and I was able to cross the finish line in fourth place. The margins were really close and I was just 1.5 minutes from second place and 1 minute from third. The fifth place guy was a minute behind me. M50 is a competitive class!
Post race data
Average power: 259W
Average heart rate: 168bpm
Max H/R: 203bpm (not normal, heart had a bit of a flip)
Weighted average power: 283W
This race: 259W/283W (weighted) compared to 265W/290W at Billingeracet and 256W/285W at Lida Loop. And of course the disaster of 214W/236W and Ränneslättsturen.