Farewell NC

Wow, what a send off...thank you to all who could make it.  For those who could not be there, here is the summary:
Less than two weeks before I hit the long road to California, some of my mountain bike friends throw me a 'Farewell Ride n' Roast' that consisted of riding the short way through Sludge, straight through Umstead Park, then the hush-hush Trenton trail, then Hubcap right back to where we started.  We drank a beer before we started and then another one or two along the way (or three if you were Ben or Chris) and then finished at Rally Point with food (mostly Ribs), more beer and a bit of a roast.  Surprisingly people took it easy on me.  David did not mention how much I talk while I ride, Chris did not bring up when I disregarded my map at PMBAR and just followed people, and no body brought up my former love-affair with 26ers.
Regardless, It was just fantastic to see so many people I have ridden with over the years...some who were there when I started with my first mtb in 2008, to those I have raced with over the years, to those who I have ridden quite frequently with on HTFU rides.  I never imagined when I started riding that I would become part of a mountain bike community, but what can I say, I fell in love with the sport and wanted to be as much a part of it as I could.  And if you are reading this, you already know that (besides the Dalai Lama) mtb'ers are the best people you will meet.  To all my riding friends out there, you will be missed.  Thank you for the encouragement, generosity and support along the way...I can only hope to find a group close to being as good as you in NorCal.  Speaking of NorCal, hopefully some of you will decide you want to ride some new trails in the Auburn/Tahoe area, just look me up and I will hook you up. 
Again, Thank you for all the memories.  Now I had better stop before I shed a tear in my beer.

 Thanks Vanessa and Cody for the pics.

Good -bye my friends, you will be missed.

2012 Burn 24

Another amazing Event!

The Scene driving in to the Burn 24, Nice!

There I am, white shirt and cap

 I am Burnt!  After completing the race as a 3-4 person team two years ago, then solo last year, this year I was talked into a Duo with Jeff D.  It seemed like a good pairing as we took 1^st and 2^nd in the Masters solo class last year.  Only problem: there is no Masters duo class, just open duo, but hey, we were in this just to have fun and to see how many laps we could turn.  We decided on each riding a lap to start, then alternating every two laps.

Jeff setting a fast pace.

We started out fast…too fast.  Before the race, I guestimated on Jeff pulling 50-53 minute laps and me pulling 55-58 minute laps.  Wrong!  My first lap was ~43., then my next two were ~45 and 49.  After I nearly died on the Lemans start, Jeff pulled the first (shortened) lap then on his rotation pulled ~44, 47 then ~49 and 49.  Every time one of us would ride by, the other would yell out, “Your going to fast!” or “Slow it down!”. It was not until half way through the race when we settled into the more comfortable pace in the low to high 50’s.  Unfortunately for me, the early pace was taking it’s toll on my legs.  My 2^nd lap was becoming consistently 3-6 minutes longer than my first lap,  I was able to stave off cramping my first lap, but each 2^nd lap the cramps came early and often.  On my last lap, I experienced something I had not felt since my first ever event (2009 JMM), debilitating cramps.  My right leg locked up so bad I fell over on the bike, screamed in agony (always one for the dramatics) as I attempted to get up, and could not even walk it out. This sucked!  One thing I have always prided myself on is not stopping.  I have seen guys pull 90 minute+ laps on this course…something you can only do if you stop (or ride gears). ;)  I knew that if I can keep moving, even with no strength, my slowest lap would be ~1:10.  Luckily, after what seemed like too long, I was able to get back on the bike.  I took a few rotations and felt o.k., then BAM! The other leg cramps up.  Luckily, I was able to fight them off and keep moving and I finally got to the final bombing downhill.  That last lap took me 1:03, ~9 minutes longer than the previous lap.  I was spent.  I was so glad it was Jeff’s turn as I did not want to do another lap, even though I knew deep inside I could, and would…if I had to, luckily, I did not. The team in 3^rd was only 23 minutes behind us after my 2^nd to last lap.  If they continued, and I did not go out for another lap, they would catch us.  I stood at the transfer area waiting to see a bike with #72 twist tied to the front, forcing me to go out for another lap.  Then it happened.  An attractive woman next to me had apparently had enough of the heat.  She pulled off her tank top (in what I swear was slow motion) to reveal a string bikini top underneath.  As several of us watched her walk away, I probably gazed a little to long and hard, but then caught something in the corner of my eye.  She had just walked past a bike with #72, sitting under the Trek tent.

TFKT Crew 2nd!  Whodathunkit???

My gaze shifted to the bike and I began to walk over toward it.  THANK GOD!  There was a 2^nd bike with #72 sitting next to it.  They were not out riding.  I saw some guys sitting there and introduced myself.  The were done and showered…said they could not even sit on the bike…I know the feeling.  So, we had 2^nd locked up and I ended up showering, breaking down my tent and nearly completing getting packed up all in the time it took Jeff to cruise in on a 51 minute final lap.

Another great Burn24 and a nice way to finish off my events here in NC as I now look ahead to my inevitable move to NorCal.

My laps: 2,5-6, 9-10, 13-14, 17-18, 21-22, 25-26.

 Some notes worth mentioning:

I did lose my lunch (or Infinite anyway) on the trail (only once), but did not loose it after the post race meal (unlike last year).

I actually pulled in the faster lap.  Sure, we all know Jeff is faster than me, and this played a role in my early cramping issues (that and the heat), which eventually led to me pulling the slowest lap, but hey, let’s focus on the positive.

Yes, this guy podiumed...again!

Laura representing the Triad.

Finally met Mrs BikeTriad herself, Laura Mulchahy.

It was nice to meet her, her husband and a crew from G’bro H’ing The F.U. & getting it done. ;)

Picked up a nice pit spot next to Kip, Alex, Stranix and crew.  They blew away the 40+ 3-5 person male team.  Congrats to them, Mike and Andy for their podium finish (coed due) and all other Trianglites who showed up to represent.  Congrats!  Finally, big thanks to Jeff for being one heck of a partner.  Not only did he consistantly ride fast laps, his encouragement and his food that I ate when he was out riding, really kept me going.  Thanks Jeff!

Mike and Andy (right) on the Podium again!

Thanks to BikeTriad, Andy, Mike & LumenTrek for the pics.

PMBAR 2012—Battle of the Bulge

Not sure what to title this write up...“Wheel Problems”  would have been on the mark also, but already I digress.  On the way to Brevard, Jay, Steve and I had to make a stop at an RV place to purchase some hoses for the propane tanks.  After a quick stop, I noticed a subway and made the suggestion to pull in for lunch rather than hitting the freeway and having to pull off again.  Jay takes the turn into the Subway parking lot when suddenly  CLANG-CLUNK-KERCLUNK!  A wheel had fallen off of Jay’s trailer, and due to the slow rate of speed, the trailer fell on the wheel.  This little mishap cost us ~4.5 hours (luckily the RV place was right there and could tow the trailer and fix the wheel).  Also, because the trailer rested on the wheel and did not scrape against the ground, only some pipes to the septic-tank broke so this mishap only ended up costing Jay ~$500 rather than $2-3 grand.  We were all pretty happy this did not happen on Hwy 40 while traveling 70 mph, so maybe it was a sign of good things to come.  We made it to Davidson River late, but still had time to check in, eat Steve’s spaghetti dinner and get a good nights sleep.
As far as a sign of good things to come, not so much:

Steve wondering if duct tape can fix this.

Blocking the entrance to Subway!

Simply put, Jay and I had a day full of mishaps and misdirection.

I was determined to be ready this year, because I remember the horrible feeling of being rushed last year and forgetting things.  No change this year.  There I was again, rushed to get to the start.  Forgot to add my 2^nd bottle cage, so no extra water bottle…and there is more.  We are at the start listening to instructions and I realize that I had not eaten any breakfast.  Yep, just blew off the most important meal of the day.  So I begin chowing down on a bar, a Slim-Jim and swallowing it down with some Infinite drink.

Ready with my custom map strapped to my chest.

Bruce at Pressley gap, ready to roll!

Go!

Oh great, I have a flat.  So there we are, everyone is off and Jay and I are at the start fixing my flat.  Luckily we aired up, I spun the tire and the Stans held, so off we went, in last place, which means we were forced to walk up black.  In fact we had to start walking on the darn road before even getting to black thanks to the backlog of riders walkers.

Jay pushing up Black, or Turkey, or Pilot, or Laurel, or Club...

Finally we make it to Pressly Gap and start to plan our route.  With a simple goal of 4 checkpoints and a finish before dark, we hurriedly decided to head down Maxwell (can’t remember what we were going to get first).  About half way down, Jay says, “You know, we could have taken Turkey Pen to Bradley Creek.”  Then it hit me.  My mind worked with the speed of a computer calculating all different scenarios and I immediately knew that was the correct route.  We came to a stop and started climbing back up Maxwell to Pressley, then pushed up Black, down Turkey Pen and to our first check point.  Surprisingly, there were a lot of people at that checkpoint, so I felt confident in our route selection.  Now off to Bradley Creek.

For mature audience...behold, my bulge!

We do the little climb not far past the first big river crossing, then hit the bombing downhill afterward, when BAM Pssssst! Flat #2.  Not just a flat, but a slice in the tire.  No boot, so I try sticking a bar wrapper over the slice (took way too long), hoped the tube did not bulge out of the tire too much, and off we went.  Now this is where I DNF’d last year after slicing up my leg on a fall, so we carefully navigated the rivers and just about reached the end when we ran into Kelly, who unfortunately had been sick all week and was calling it a day.  He gave us his spare boot (we decided to only use it if the tube popped) and fantastic directional advice to
 our next checkpoint.

With Kelly's guidance, and pointers I felt very confident we were on track so off we went racing down 1206 to Laurel.  All I could think about was getting a grilled cheese sandwich and a coke.  I remember passing a few trails, but could not see signs, but it did not matter, where we were going was beyond Janes' sandwiches.  Then we run into Steve and Tim.  We tell them out plan and Steve tells us, “Dudes, you are almost to 276.”  Holy Mutha F’er!  We went the wrong way on 1206!!!  Kelly gave us explicit directions, but assumed we knew which way to turn on 1206.  Actually we did know which way to turn, we just did not do it.  SON OF A B!$@#!  So, back we went, with Steve and Tim.

Dave Anderson and Jim Stranix at the top of Pilot.

Jay and I at the bottom of Pilot.

We decided rather than riding back to Laurel (maybe we should have) we hiked up Pilot (took me 59 minutes to get to the top) and down Laurel to the checkpoint, then back up Laurel and rode down Pilot to 1206 and off to 276.  Saw Hawkins coming down Pilot (among others), saw Anderson and Stranix at the top along with a constant stream of teams making their way from Laurel. Also noticed that the slice in my tire had increased in size and now had part of the tube bulging out.  Yikes, so coming down Pilot (and from that point on) I am trying really hard to avoid any rock or root from coming close to rubbing against the drive side of my rear tire as I really did not want to change the tire (again).
Anyway, we are finally are on track with mostly fireroads left to ride.  We get to the 225 checkpoint without issue and then head back up to Club Gap and gingerly down Avery to CP#4.  It was there we were told to double check our passport and instantly decided to take the side trail over to Clawhammer, and down to Maxwell.  We knew we would now be finishing in the dark, but now the goal was just to finish.  The tire was looking worse, but we decided to risk it and just go.  We road up Maxwell to Pressley, and made it up and down Black with lights on and no real issues (nice to see JD and Mark w/ 5 CP’s) and onto the finish where we downed our burrito, some beer and conversation with everyone else who had crossed the line in front of us.   We did not get the finish we wanted, but just like our drive there, it could have been much, much worse, and ultimately ended up o.k..

Heading toward CP#3, Look out for Poison Ivy!

Jay cruising down 225.

   Almost to CP#4, were gonna make it!

Thanks to the generosity of Kelly and his family, we enjoyed some delicious spaghetti and meatballs (and more beer) and spent the rest of the night exchanging stories of our day with Jeff, Bobby, JD et. al.  I seem to remember a comical focus on how my large bulge almost kept Jay and I from a qualifying finish, but I think it is only funny when you are not sober. 

Good times!

Note: The next day when we were packing up, a guy camping across from us came over to chat.  We started talking about the race and I eventually asked how he did.  He replied, “We had a pretty good ride, ended up winning…”  It was Jake Mcgahey.  Totally cool guy, we all talked about the race, work, kids, riding etc.  Really nice of him (and his wife and kid) to come hang out with a few guys that came in 67^th place and/or DNF’d.  I’ve had this experience several times either training or at events where I end up just talking bikes with amazing riders.  One of the things I love about mountain biking is most guys, regardless of ability, love talking bikes as much as I do…

Just another thing that really makes this sport special.

Jay and I at the finish with burritos & beer...there is a joke there somewhere.

Niner Sir 9: First Ride Review

The Green Machine after the inaugural ride.

It is clean, it is green, and it is a machine.  I recently built up this Niner Sir 9 as my back up bike for my wife to ride, but it has only seen double-track as well as the pavement around our neighborhood (o.k., and one short .3 mile test ride on my backyard single-track by Nate's girlfriend).  I've been itching to ride this beauty, so when the wife had some cancellations and came home early, I was off!   

Due to a small amount of recent rain, I knew most ‘official’ trails would be closed, so I decided to go to my favorite ‘unofficial‘ trail off Old Reedy Creek Rd.   The plan: ~12 miles of single-track and maybe more.  Unfortunately, I found out the airport area had received much more rain than the southern part of the county as the trails were soaking wet & muuudy.  I rode less than 4 miles of single-track before I was back out onto Umstead.  :(

Fortunately the bike performed well in spite of the wet, slick conditions.  My biggest reason for wanting to get this beast on the trails was NOT to compare my scandium One9 ride to the ride of steel (the steel was noticeably better, but more on that some other time) but to test the new 1x9 drive-train setup.  I am using a sweet looking bash w/ an N-Gear Jump Stop to keep the chain steady.  Even though I know others using this set-up successfully, I have read (on forums) of people losing their chain as well (install error?), so I wanted to bounce down some trail to test it out.  Now I did not bomb down any trails with the wet conditions, but I aimed for every rock and root to get my bounce on.  I was happy not only with the chain staying in place, but also that there was no discernible chain-slap on the lower chain-stay (I guess Dillon @ Dillon Bikes took out the correct amount of chain-links for me).  Being that I have not ridden gears on trails in a long time, I was amazed at how much better traction was when I geared down.  Sure, I went slower than normal, but there was no spinning out on slippery rocks or roots and the aerobic workout was stellar and necessary for my tired legs.  When I hit Umstead afterward, I was also amazed at how much slower I climbed with the gears, but also how much faster I could descend and ride on flats.  On the slightly downhill section from the cemetery to my car I was consistently hitting 23+ mph by gearing down.  On my normal 32:20, I am lucky to hit 15mph on semi-flat Umstead areas (with some downhill momentum).  So in summary: I think I will need to ride this bike more to be able to give a fair and honest review *wink*.    

Bashguard w/N-Gear Jump Stop

The 1x9 setup had no issues

I will say that my decision to build up this green machine (for my wife, of course) is looking better and better.

Wheelset close up --Stans Arch's w/Hope ProII Hubs.

Almost done!

2012 ORC HTFU 100 -- Rain Delay

After postponing the race due to another event being postponed due to rain, we rode 100 miles in the rain.  What a day!

Mine started at ~4 a.m., there was thunder and lightning visible from the crack in the drapes, and it was raining, hard.  My wife wakes me up to tell me (in a serious, somewhat angry tone) that she wants me to reconsider riding this morning.  I look up at the clock and say, “You woke me up at 4 in the morning to tell me this?”  She went on using words like ridiculous, crazy, right mind…but I had already started trying to get back to sleep )really, we have been married for almost 10 years, does she even know me?).  At ~4:30 I am woken up again by her talking.  I turn to her and ask what she said. “Nothing.”  “Were you talking in your sleep?” “No”, “Were you talking to me?” “Yes.” “Well, what did you say?” “Never mind.” “Really? Are we going to play this game?” “Fine, I said you have more machismo than brains!” “Oh, thank you.” And I went back to sleep again, in-spite of the loud noises made by her eyes rolling.  When I do wake up, it is still raining, hard.  I go to the computer to see who all has cancelled (a few), I get ready, grab my usual banana and chocolate milk breakfast (along with a half eaten power bar) and off I go.

Fast Forward to 7ish.  When I pull up to park on ORC Jeff, Steve and Matt are already there.  The rain is coming down pretty steadily, but this is an HTFU ride, so we get ready and by 7:05 we are off.  We are all surprised Mark is not here, but think we may run into him.  Just after crossing hwy 40 we see someone coming up behind us.  It is not Mark but Geoff, and then before we even get to the gate, Mark shows up.  So six of us set off for the ride.

Single-track was not really an option. Our route consisted of a bizarre Umstead loop (1.5 loops really) and then the decision that we should try to link Greenway to the ATT.  We did, eventually, but Matt first led us on a couple of mini loops around the streets of Cary.  We were kinda going the right way, just with a couple loops or out and backs thrown in (the longest being 7 miles)…no one seemed to mind because after all, the goal was 100 miles, in the rain; how we got those miles was inconsequential at this point.

I should mention that because Geoff rode ~200 road miles Saturday, he rode with us for ~40 miles before heading home.  Kudos to him for showing up in this weather.

I probably should not share this next event, so I will be coy and you will need to infer the facts.  The last stretch of greenway was brought to a halt due to some MASSIVE construction of a new…uh, road.  Once we navigated past this ‘road’, and onto the last stretch of greenway, it was only a few miles to the ATT.  We rode ~5 miles down to the New Hill entrance (see pic) and then headed back the way we came.  At this point we were 50-60 miles in and were hungry! 

Next Stop, Jimmy Johns.

Matt was true to his word and flipped the bill for the five lunches.  Interestingly, I saw three #10’s and one #14 (can’t remember what Matt had), but they are delicious.  The best part of JJ’s sandwiches is the bread.  It is soft and delicious, but also light in that it does not take over the sandwich the way a large chain competitors does (if you could not crack that code, I am talking about Subway).

Alright, lunch is over, we are all feeling better and we hit the Black Creek Greenway back to Umstead. Steve had to bail due to a time constraint ( I think he was only going to ride as far as he needed to get the Jimmy John’s sandwich, so I am glad we ate later rather than sooner so he had to man up and ride for ~72 miles).  Now we are down to four.  We decide on an Umstead lap, and a trip out the Reedy Creek Greenway toward Ben & Jerry’s.  Due to the weather, we decided not to stop for ice cream (shocking!) and just keep pedaling as we realized that whenever we stopped, the odometer stops also (very frustrating).  At this point (~mile 80) I hit the wall.  I had some energy, but absolutely no power.  I did not walk, but I was crawling up inclines.  Everybody was leaving me behind, and I did not care.  If you have done long rides, you get to that point where you don’t care about anything other than finishing.  Luckily Matt was not feeling great also (though better than me) and he stuck with me for most of the remaining miles while Jeff and Mark rode far in front of us.  When Matt and I finally made it back to the cars, we still needed  over ½ a mile, so we coasted down the hill and across the ORC bridge before the water treatment facility and then a short (~.15)  out and back on the greenway to get our final tally.  FWIW, yes, it rained the entire time.  The heaviest was the first few hours before dropping to a drizzle.  But at that point, it did not matter.  We were all soaked and we were going to finish.  Glad I did the ride, glad I had good company, glad it is over!

At ATT New Hill Area.

 100 miles baby!

 

Finally Done.

Some of the highlights from the ride:

Matt literally running into the wall going through a greenway tunnel.  From behind it literally looked like he fell asleep while riding and just leaned into the wall.  Because it was a tunnel, the sound of his shoulder and bar end scraping against the concrete was pretty loud.  Still, he held on and rode on out.  Talk about ‘hitting the wall’.

Mark showed us a new route through Umstead at ~mile 77.  It helped add a bit of single track to the ride and was a fun little section.  Unfortunately, I am sure it may be “frowned upon” so I doubt it will become part of my regular laps.


Decided to wear glasses (yellow lenses) the first ~30 miles (good decision).  Took them off before hitting the greenway (bad decision).  the rest of the ride invovled constant blinking to flush the grit out of one or both eyes.  There was no wiping eyes due to the grit all over your hands and the rest of your face. Good times.

I carried a soda from ~mile 30 to mile 70 in my back shirt pocked just to drink with my sandwich.  It exploded when I naively twisted the cap off.  Luckily I was already wet, so it did not bother me too much.  Being wet, sticky and cold was not great (much more fun being wet, sticky and warm).

Matt almost lost his left testicle on a spill that had him, uh, falling on the tip of his seat.  He was in pain, but he hardened up (poor choice of words?) and rode it off.

Matt had messed up his pinky and so was riding with a pinky brace and no gloves.  He was telling me how the doctor said he needed to wear the brace for 6-8 weeks to give it a chance to straighten. Just after he finishes telling me this, his brace falls off while going down hill, so just says ‘screw it’ and rode on with a bent pinky tip.  Maybe when he gets home he will pull a Ronnie Lot and just cut the little sucker off.

I am sure I am leaving things out because it is late and I am tired.

Good Times!

2012 Meltdown at Harris Lake -- 6 Hour Race

Note: the race was rain delayed to April 14th

What a fantastic day to ride your bike on a windy, twisty, slippery, rooty loop, over and over… for ~6 hours. 

This 6 hr. race at Harris Lake was a special one.  Not because I was feeling good (though I was) and not because I did well (though I did), but because it will likely be my last TORC endurance event with many of the riders I met when I began racing in 2009.  The course was well laid out (Thanks to Steve, John, Matt and yours truly) and the weather was spot on perfect!  I chose to race my last local event in the Single Speed class (which would come back to haunt me), even though I could have raced 40+.  Because I am known for riding a SS, it seemed like a fitting way to end my last local event. 

And we’re off!  The race started well with surprisingly less bottle-necking than I expected.  I followed my usual strategy of going out a bit fast the first lap and letting the momentum of other riders carry me through for a bit.  One thing I did differently this time was I tried to keep up my momentum (faster pace) longer than usual.  I felt good and wanted to test my endurance and recovery with a quicker pace, and what do you know, I was able to hang in there, well, for 6+ laps anyway.  I even caught up to and rode ~ a lap and a half with Jeff Dennison who is a class above me (literally and figuratively) until that 6^th lap. I did not really hit the wall, but I lost power/strength and slowed down over many areas of the course. My laps went from ~34 to 36 minutes for laps 1-6, to ~39-41 minutes for laps 7 through 9 (not a dramatic drop, but certainly less consistent).  I also started cramping during lap 6 and it came on hard during 7 - 9.  I was glad I was able to fight through it and keep riding, as I will need to do that for PMBAR in three weeks.  One strategy I tried to implement, even when my legs had lost their power, was the mental game.  It is so easy during a race to just go slow when you legs are shot.  I knew this course well enough to know that there are many spots to gain a lot of speed and keep a lot of momentum if you pedal with a fast cadence and just keep pedaling.  Sure, I suffered, but I was able to not loose dramatic time by keeping mentally alert and taking advantage of maximizing speed where the trail would allow it.  I passed a lot of riders those last few laps using this technique.

Interestingly, when I came across the line to start lap 9, I noticed that my last lap was ~41 minutes.  There was ~39-40 minutes until the cut-off.  I knew that there would be a good chance I would just miss the cutoff for another lap, and believe me, I was glad to miss it.  Sure, if I reeeeally needed to, I could have Hardened The  #$@%  Up and done one more, but with some home construction on Sunday, A “Rugged Maniac” mud run next Saturday and a 100 mile ride next Sunday, I was ready to start my recovery.
In all I completed 9 laps in ~5:36 for a total of ~60 miles.  That was good enough for only 5th place in the Single Speed category.  IF I had registered for 40+, I would have been on the podium at 2nd place.  Still, it ain't nuthin' but a thing.  I had a great race and a great time.

Photos courtesy of 'Melissa's Dad'.

Thanks 'Melissa's Dad'. :)

Thanks again to Steve Rodgers and all the Volunteers (myself included…yes I just thanked myself) for the efforts to make this event  happen.  The local series (XC and 6 hr) have been a big part of my life over the last three years and have kept me motivated to keep riding.  This is something I will truly miss.


Note: Many interesting stories in this race.  Like the gal who showed up having never raced before and killed it!  But one of the most interesting was this guy I had just passed who bit it hard.  His bike flipped to the side after what looked like hitting a root just wrong, and he seemed to flip over twice and slide along the ground while tangled in his bike.  It all happened so fast but I was like, "Dude, you o.k.?" He replies, "It wasn't as bad as it looked." Of course he knew it looked bad, and he said this while grimacing while still on the ground tangled in his bike.  So I said, "Well it did look bad..." and something like See ya, or Gotta Run. And before you crucify me for not stopping to help, he did get back up and keep riding. After the race I found him and asked how he felt.  I pointed out I was the guy who was next to him when he bit it.  He asked me, "Which time?".  Turns out he went down, hard, four times.  He was scraped and bleeding from both arms and both legs, in numerous place.  But he only had to fix his bike once, and he kept riding.  That guy deserves an HTFU award!

2012 Curse at the Crab 6hr Race – Blessed!

I was really looking forward to this event, 6 hrs at Crabtree Park trails, with a 2-8 pm run time, meaning a few laps in the dark…but then I started throwing up Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and suddenly I was dreading it.  Still, I figured it was better to race than to regret.  After all, the race is only 6 hrs, but regret lasts much longer (hey, someone should coin that).  The stomach was still bothering me race day and I felt a bit weak, but whatever.  I think it was Nate who told me, "...just another opportunity to HTFU!"

I stuck to yogurt drink, crackers, a hard boiled egg and banana for breakfast (kinda spread out over the morning), then another banana, chocolate milk and ginger ale a couple hours before the race.  Then right before the race, some more ginger ale and some salt n’ vinegar chips.

I tried to be careful with what I ate the day of the race as my stomach was still feeling crappy (the chips did not help).  Luckily three trips to the port-a-jon helped clean me out and off I went

Just before I crashed...don't I look happy?

Heading out for lap 4, you can see I am feeling good now.

I knew there would be the long trail of riders going into the single track, so better too be to far up, than too far back.  Then whoosh!  Going around a turn, ~1.5 miles in to the race, my tires wash out and I hit the dirt.  Luckily my buddy Jeremy was right behind me and just missed leaving a tire tread tattoo on my torso.  So I stood up, dusted off my pride, and watched and waited for all the bikers to go by until I finally had time to jump in line and get back into the race.  If I already felt crappy, crashing in the 1^st lap did not help.  Funny, I had the same kind of crash in lap three, but nobody saw it, so it did not bother me as much.   Anyway, I continued to feel crappy the first three+ laps.  It did not help that I knew I was likely in last place in SS and could not catch anybody, not even guys I have lapped on past races.  I mean seriously, was I just having a bad day?  Was I suddenly this bad & was everyone else that good?  Orrr, did some guys just go out too fast?  I hoped for the latter.  I also wanted to stick to the #1 rule in endurance racing, which is: Just keep pedaling and good things may happen.  Funny how ‘Niner’ summed it up on my frame with “Pedal Damn It!”, so I did.  I even started to feel better around lap 4 and felt like I could keep my pace without irritating my stomach.  Then it happened.  I passed another SS’er, then another, then another.  This went on for the next few laps until I got to what I knew would be my last lap.  I knew Jeremy, Mark and Ahmet were ahead of me, and maybe someone I did not know??? Regardless, if I went hard, I might catch a couple of them, and finish in the top 5.  I pushed it.  Every rider I came up to, I was just hoping they were on a SS.  The lap was now half way past, no SS’ers.  Then ~3/4 through, I came upon Mark who decided not to attempt to stay with me.  I thought for sure Jeremy would be nearby so I laid down the hammer and went as fast as I could knowing that there was maybe 1 to 1.5 miles left.  By the time I neared the bridge before the last climb I could see no one and accepted that Ahmet and Jeremy were going to finish ahead of me.  I was not surprised with Ahemt as he has really stepped up his riding and has been winning races.  Jeremy on the other hand, while a solid racer and strong competitor, has not finished ahead of me in any event (usually due to crashing or mechanical) and we have been racing these local events together since 2009.  Imagine my shock when I get to the finish line (9 laps, 60.3 miles in 5:42), to find out Jeremy and Ahmet are out for lap 10, then Jeremy comes in first!.  What a race for him!  Clearly all that working out and eating good is helping.  Maybe I should try it, but unfortunately I like to eat too much.  Anyway, I ended the event not feeling "Cursed at the Crab", but blessed to find out I snuck into 3^rd place.  I was also glad that the two guys above me did 10 laps.  No way was I hittin’ that even if I was healthy, so I don’t need to feel bad about how much better I could have done.  Sure, I could have ‘possibly’ raced a bit faster, but not that much.  Now plenty of time to heal up for the final TORC Endurance Series event at Harris Lake in 2 weeks…or plenty of time to get sick again, but then I would be truly cursed.  Always nice to have an excuse though. :)