Burn baby burn!!!! Austin did not want to attend this race so I drove down to Morristown on saturday by myself to give the "12hr racing" another shot. Forecast 95degress.................well now that adds some spice to my ride doesn't it? After my mental disaster at Tsali I buckled down, got my noggin' on straight and went down with a most positive attitude. I got to say it totally worked too! I prepped all my fuel\supplemants for the days riding, got all my ducks in a row and was ready, anxious and very eager. I didn't get much sleep the night before because of wanting to see Doc Watson play at the Blue Plum Festival. Got up at 530 am , finished loading the car that I semi-loaded the night before at midnight after the festival. Got to Morristown at 730 am, met Andy,David,Bob and some others there. Anthony made a nice fashionable late appearence 10min before race starts :0) They were all on a team. We got to do another LeMans start, wasnt very far or bad though and I jogged the whole way. Hopped on my special-ED 29er and we were off. I swear I didn't get 1/2 a mile..... B O O M !! I mean a loud thunderous BOOM, my rear tube explodes like a road tire. DAMN not again, I started laughing so hard. I got off the bike and changed the tube and took off. I was laughing the whole first lap. I kept my chin up and my attitude was fine. My first lap was slow due to the flat. Came in watered up, ate a "nana" , gel and some perpetuem. Off for #2. I have to say the Hammer perpetuem is the bomb for long endurance stuff! I stepped up my game on the second lap, my computer said 50:03. I was satisfied and chilled for my 3rd. I took somewhat longer in the pits this time since I had to pace myself. I knew I wasn't going to podium, this year im just trying to see if Im going to like doing this kind of racing or not for next year. I came back from #3 and rested. Angie stopped by on the way to her DZ to give me some support, shes just awesome!!!!. She hung out for an hour with me then she left and I started #4. It was freaking HOT now! BAD and DANGEROUS HOT!!! I wasn't pushing myself at all. Everytime I layed down the power to the legs to climb my heart rate would just skyrocket and the sweat would start coming out from under my helmet like Niagra Falls. I kept telling myself easy tiger you ain't got anything to prove. I seen SEVERAL riders looking very bad walking and sitting in the woods trying to cool off. I asked each of them if they were ok before continuing on. Well I made it back and took a outside shower at the USS Lamberson (thanks BOB!) Got some fresh riding gear on and sat down. I took a short 20 min nap awoke and was ready to go for #5. I eased out the gate with David and he left me in a cloud of dust up the biggest climb of the course right out of the start and I never seen him 'til I got back. (About 10 min into that lap I hear this really loud crashing sound. It sounded like a truck pulling a horse trailer pulled out from the parking lot and a car ran over it, really that's what it sounded like. I got up to the horse parking area and I pedaled up to the road to have a gander. WOW a car had flipped and was laying upside down/vertical in the ditch. There was 7-8 people around the car giving assistance. I continued on and I heard the fire truck and ambulance in route. As I was crossing the soccer fields about 1/2 mile away from the start\finish area, this huge life flight helicopter lifts off from the pool area. I guess someone was injured badly enough to be air-lifted.) I got a little ahead of myself there 5th lap..... the team was turning 44-55min lap times. NOT ME, I was pacing myself, an hour to an hr and 5min for me. I was feeling really good but the HEAT started rising inside me again. I looked at my times and I was going alot faster than I thought I was. My legs were fine all day but my heart rate monitor hit 203 I started really sweating more than I had all day. I was getting queasy and light headed but I never stopped. I slowed WAY down and eased back to the pits, thats when I seen the helicopter. I had every intention of doing a 6th, even Bob said if you hurry you can get at least two more smiling the whole time, but they started cooking and I was hungry, really hungry. I wanted more than a liquid meal and some jelly gu. BURNED ANIMAL FLESH was on my mind like a caveman on the hunt. It was now about 5pm ,I drank a coke and that was a mistake. The caffiene and sugar didn't bode well with my stomach and I started feeling like I wanted to curl up in the fetal position in the exploder and rest. I still had 4hrs to ride, I moved around a bit but it didnt help much. These guys that can hammer all day really impressed me, the winning rider did like 12-13 laps. Thats amazing!!!! those dudes are either crazy insane needing to prove something to themselves or are really conditioned. Needless to say I was glad that I got what I did accomplished. It was a definate improvement over my last one and I hope to make more improvements at the next one. I got a huge plate of charcoaled grilled chicken (blackened), baked beans, chips and an ice cold keg of beer that I couldn't pronounce the name of. I sat back talked strategy with Andy's team and enjoyed the company. I unofficially took myself out of the race and self-proclaimed me to be "team manager" now for Andy's team. Angie rolled back in and hung out for about an hour before we decide to head on home. Congratulations to the team for 2nd place they rode hard and deserved it! They also got some nice schwag for their efforts. I havent seen the results but last I looked there I was like 17th out of 25 or so. If I had done one more lap it would have only moved me up three spots, oh well....
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