The weather ended up turning out extremely well considering they were calling for torrential rain earlier in the week. Nothing like a nice mid 60 degree sunny day on the mountain bike in the woods at the beginning of spring!
First lap was just as I expected.....a mess! The newbies gunned it and got ahead of a lot of riders and ended up causing pileups at the first obstacles on the singletrack, specifically the first creek crossing and switchback right before the first climb. Nothing like killing your momentum right before a nice climb. First lap was pretty uneventful aside from a lot of moaning, crying and generally being a jackoff from some guy about 5 riders behind me, there were 4 in front of me. Said "jackoff" was complaining the whole time saying "if you're not gonna stand up on the climbs then get outta the way". I will never understand the mentality of some of those guys. Surely they know this is gonna happen? I know I did. If you
are so badass, either run faster at the start or haul ass on the beginning road section. Midway through the first lap I realized that I had forgotten to unload my backup water supplies for the camelback and they were in my truck at the spa with my girlfriend....oooops. I did have all my water bottles but I was going through water pretty fast. Luckily at the pit I called for backup and was brought some water at lap 2! Thank goodness, I was kinda freaking out.
Brad and I coming into the pits after lap 1....
Lap 2, feeling it a bit more....calmed down and settled into the groove but ran out of water halfway into the lap.
Lap 3, still feeling it. Pedaled a bit harder. The ups and down started. One minute I would feel great, then 10 min. later I'd feel a bit zapped, 10 min. later great again. This continued on the rest of the race.
Lap 4, came in with an hour and a half left to get in by cut off. During this lap I was feeling the fatigue starting to set in and tried to keeping the cramps at bay. Left hamstring starting cramping so I switched all the power to the right
leg, right hamstring was start to cramp so I'd switch power to the left leg.....this continued til the end of the race.
Lap 5, the Journeymen motto came on full force. Just Get There. Don't blow up and cramp, don't wreck, keep a steady pace and finish. Andrea lapped me here at the longest climb with what seemed like endless switchbacks and made the comment, "they've got a few more hills than Memphis"...or something to that effect. Ended up finishing with about 15 min. to spare!
Great race, all the pro's were extremely nice and said "thanks" when letting them pass (which a lot of the non-pros could learn from). This was my 2nd year at this race and I'll definitely be back next year! Very well run and enjoyable event!
Here's my garmin info....
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157140535
and the smile on my face knowing this is the last lap!
and immediately after the finish line! anything felt more comfortable than that bike saddle, even gravel!
Overall I think I was most impressed with the fact that I didn't have any bad cramps and at how consistent my lap times were.
Click below for larger image of lap times...
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