***Sorry this never got finished or posted. I had wanted to add a lot more to the text, but just never got around to it. Now it is too far gone to fix.
The first race of the 6 hour series was last weekend. Actually it was supposed to be the second, but the first was rained out. I have been wanting to do this series since it started but things just have not worked out. The race was on Sunday so we headed out on Saturday to check out the trails. The trail system had a pretty good amount of rain the two days before this. That morning the trails were still listed as red, but I saw where a crew was going to do some trail work to get it ready. By the time we made it to the park, the trails were changed to a yellow status. We tried to figure out how the race was going to go since we had not been there before and headed out for a lap to check it out.
I was worried about how muddy we would get, but overall the trails were not that bad and our bikes were spared being covered in mud. I really didn’t want to mess up the trails or my bike the day before a race. Not really knowing where we were going we had to stop a couple times and look at a map to try and figure out what turns to make. The trails were overall pretty fun. They had a little bit of everything. Tight, rooty, rocky, flowy, technical sections and a couple climbs. The climbing was not as bad as I thought it would be, but there were a lot of other things that would wear a person out over 6 hours.
Having a good group of people to hang out with and ride with always makes things more fun. It would not have been nearly as fun if I was by myself. We also didn’t guess too bad on the route. There were only a few spots that we did something different than what the race did, but it was good to see everything that we did see. After the ride we changed and headed out for some food. We decided to check out 50 West Brewing. There was a big party going on across the street. The food was good and the beer was even better.
Morning came around pretty quickly. I tried to hurry up and eat and get ready then we headed to the venue. We were pretty early so we ended up with a great pit area. I tried to start out slow since it was going to be a long day. I felt like I did just that, but my times were a lot faster on the early laps. I was riding pretty well and consistent for the first few laps. Somewhere between the 3rd and 4th lap I hit bottom. I was pretty empty when I finished my 4th lap and took a break. I debated on not going out for my 5th lap, but after eating and drinking a few things I felt good enough again that I would mad at myself for not going. Off I went to complete just one more lap. That lap hurt, but I was sure glad I did it. I know I would have been disappointed if I didn’t go.
I didn’t finish at the top or anything, but overall was pretty happy with my first 6 hour race. I did 5 laps and finished 13th in the Men’s open and 41st overall. I’ll take that.
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