SM 100, Version 3.0...

Yes this was my third SM100, and this time I managed to bring some friends. I have been talking up this event since the first time I did it 3 years ago, so I was hoping they wouldn't be disappointed.

Peaches, L Webb, Jeb, Rotten Rob, Nick, and Lisa V, all did the SM 100 for the first time, and I am pretty sure they loved it.

Joining us with support were Tom, iPaul, Liz, Katie, and John.

This was our smallest set up to date, which was fine because none of us was up to a big clean up in the morning.

Saturday we did got out for a,little ride to stretch the legs, then it was clean up, eat and sleep. The only problem was sleep was hard to come by. Between the thunderstorm, the fireworks, the assholes with megaphone, and TJ the dog that barked at everything, I think I got about an hour of sleep.

5:00am came pretty quick, and before I knew it we were lined up for the start. I'm not going to get into too many details, but I will touch on some highlights and of course some lowlights.

I felt pretty good from the start. I was actually riding more than I have in the past despite running a harder gear. I eventually caught Peaches and L Webb, and rode with them for a while, we also picked up Rolf. This worked for me because Rolf and I actually worked together on the flats. The single track was as sweet as ever, I even remember Matt saying how awesome it was.

Things were going better than I expected until about 65 miles in, that is when my infamous boo boo belly started to hit. I was able to sip water, and nibble on a little food at the aid station, but it was no where near enough. Despite all that my legs still felt pretty good.

Peaches and I rolled out of aid station 5 and made our way up the rest of the mountain. On the way down Matt got a gap in some traffic and I was on my own. It wasn't long until I found him starting to fix a flat so I stopped. That is when Rolf went by. Matt and I took off again and rolled into aid station 6, at this point I was feeling really bad. I took a few extra minutes while Matt took off. Again, even though I was feeling rough I still rode more of the last climb than in the past. I was not going to reach my goal of under 10:30, but I still had a shot at cracking 11:00, but that didn't happen either. I finally crossed the line at 11:07, 5 minutes behind Matt. It wasn't my goal, but it was my best time.

I was feeling a little ill, and really dehydrated, so I tried to sip on some Gatorade. The result was not good, I found myself sticking my head out of the tent to puke. Then a little girl says, "Mister, You OK, you look pretty sick." I try to give a thumbs up while looking for my shoes to come out of my mouth.

It took about an hour or so until I drank some water, and soon I was able to eat a little.

In the end it was a great trip. Everyone finished and everyone had a good time.

Special thanks to Chris Scott and the countless volunteers that made this event possible. As always a world class event.

Time for bed,

Cheers,

Buddy