Savage is the word, Brutal is the race

M-B-M yesterday...a race that changed my life. 38 miles of the best "soon to be a real trail" course Madison has to offer. We started off at Orton Park, the route was rider's choice heading to the trail head at Capital City path and Southwest Commuter Trail's intersection. One block into the race cyclists were heading in nearly every direction. Some of us stayed on the bike path, others (namly Zack and Frank) took John Nolen Drive so they wouldn't have to mess with cross walk. I had to mess with cross walk. Pretty good timing had the lights changing perfectly in time with my arrival. I was trying to hold Tim's wheel, and kind of ended up maintaining about a 30-second gap up to him. We weren't even out of the arb and my heart was pounding in my ears. I thought for sure I'd be battling it out for DFL in about 4 hours. Instead, I cought Tim and dropped him on the Seminole hwy climb, I was pretty sure that I had a good gap on him, however about 500 meters before turning right onto the cap city path, he passed me...holding onto a pick up truck. That was the last I saw of him aside from a few glimpses here and there. I was passed then by Jesse, John, Erik Olsen and D*pow. Dan and I ended up putting in the team effort for most of the race, if not for him, I'd probably still be out there. Roughly 15 miles of the trail was spent in my "granny gear" (36x23), it was tourturous at best...then the trail turned to swamp and I came to grips that this could be my time, I might just die here. At the turnaround I was feeling a new zest for life, and my legs felt less fatigued, it was back into the swamp and the trail was drying and my speed seemed to be increasing...that or Dan was fading...it was impossible to tell. Back on the streets my legs were complete mush, climbing Seminole again I could barely close a gap on a 300 pound man who'd sweated all the way into his jeans. I stared for what seemed like eternity has his swampy ass, thinking "WTF, why can't I pass him?" I finally did pass and never looked back, it was a solo effort form here, arriving back at Orton park in roughly 11th place and beating my goal of 3 hours. It was a fantastic race. Many thanks to the kittens for putting this all together, and to all the racers to came out to suffer. Final standings had Cory winning, Jason in 2nd, and Jesse 3rd.