Two Wheel Blogs

Thank the lord baby jesus for giving us a beautiful day yesterday. I think the temps were about 85 and there was a nice breeze for most of the day. Yesterday was the mark of the 12 and 6 hour Rapture in Misery at Landahl. I was stoked for this race because not only was it going to be my first solo 6 hour race, but also my first real 6 hour ride. I say real because it took us 7 hours to do 25 miles at the Middlefork epic trail one day, that was more of a suckfeast.

There was a ton of people there yesterday and the race started at 12. It was a lehmans type start which was also my first. That was pretty cool. I stuck to the middle of the pack because I knew it was going to be a long day, and I didn't feel like hammering it out of the gate like some did.

Wow, what a different pace of racing. We came into the woods in one giant line. Probably 50 or so deep. It was real slow going for the first part of lap 1, with a whole lot of walking because others couldn't hang the technical sections and had to stop resulting in giant pile ups. So the fist lap passed and low and behold my back had already started to hurt.

I took a quick break to switch out waterbottles and down a gel, and it was off for lap 2. Started out great until I crashed due to a guy running into me when I was trying to pass. It hurt, but it just took my mind off the other pains. The second lap was a lot quicker.

My saddle bag broke a few races ago and I tried to ghetto rig it but it was swingin freely so I had to transfer everything from my pack to the back of my jersery, I didnt want to have a camelback on, they can wrek havoc on your back. I also downed a couple of ibeprofen to help the back sitch.

Lap 3 was smokin, and amazingly when I finished I noticed I was in like 2nd place. WTF? This pretty much made me go right back out to hammer the 4th lap, but that's when fatigue set in. I managed to finish the 4th, and took a quick break to down another jel, banana, and a few bites of a sandwich.

Lap 5 was slow, because I was getting to the point of becoming to tired, and on this course you have to pay close attention to what you're doing, or else you just might end up in a nasty situation. My hands became numb on the last part and I came in to the timing station and pretty much called it a day. I came in a 5 hours and 40 minutes give or take a few. Two guys ended up coming in right after me and they went back out but I just didn't feel it. I'm glad I didn't too, cause as I laid back in my chair all clean and happy, I happend to see them come back in, and they looked bad...

So what did it all amount to? 50 miles of trail riding, and out of thin air I managed to get 5th out of 42 riders in the Mens Solo 6. Yay, I Could have tried to hold off 3rd, and 4th on lap 6 but it was probably best I didn't go back out, everything about me was in pain. I'll take 5th anyday, especially since it was my first. There's alot of things I could have done differently and probably better, but I'm more than pleased.

I pretty much made my money back in swag. They gave out swag to the top 8 places. Just to bad they didn't pay out! They put on a hell of a race though, and big props go out to the Heartland guys and gals. Top notch. Too bad a few of you boys couldn't have come up and did a team 12 hour with me. That would have been fun. I'll be back next year, this is for sure.

Today I'm tired, and ready for a day of relaxing. Two of my fingers are still numb. Humm? This can't be good, hopefully it will subside today. This typing thing feels weird.