I Survived, That's About It...

This was one of those weekends where I never got to sit back and relax. Saturday I had some errands to run in the am, then I brewed up my latest batch of beer. Plus I managed to sneak in a quick ride. Wes cooked up some pasta for dinner, since he was headed to the Midnight race At Marsh Creek, and I was headed out early for Michaux's Curse of Dark Hollow.

I was kind of excited since I missed the spring race. The weather was going to be pretty warm, but not the usual mid 90's and humid. I met up with Jay and Steve early in the morning and we made our way to the race.

Things started off OK, I was in a pretty good spot when we hit the trail, and the legs felt OK. About 5 or 6 miles in I found out the hard way that one of the bolts from my cleat had fallen out, when I couldn't click out I just fell over. I tightened the other bolt up and continued on. This didn't last long because I had to come out of the pedal again, and I fell over again. Lucky for me Jon Posner happened by and had a spare bolt on him. I fixed my shoe again and rode on.

I guess it was around the half way point when I started to come apart, right after the MF hike a bike. I managed to keep going, but I was seriously considering pulling out at the next aid station, that was supposed to be at mile 31.6. I came up to a big climb about 30 miles in and figured the aid station was at the top. It wasn't. After I finally got to the top and started riding again, I heard that dreaded hissing sound of my brand new Continental Race King tire going flat, you know, the one with the extra tough sidewalls. Guess what, I ripped a hole in mine. I got through the tire process pretty quick, but when I went to put the cO2 in, my dispenser was fucked up and just blew cO2 everywhere, but into my tire. Once again, lucky for me Keith G came by with a pump. Him and a couple of friends from Rhode Island were just riding at this point so I joined in. I knew I was at least going to finish now. I actually felt a little better after the aid station 34 miles in, you know the one that was supposed to be 31.6.
I knew we didn't have far to go, what I didn't know was how hard the last 5 miles was. Tight, twisty, rocky, loamy and slightly uphill, talk about energy draining. It seemed like it took forever, but I finished.

For the most part I was OK with how I rode, take away the troubles I had and I might have had a decent day. But, oh well, that is Michaux.

Cheers,
Buddy