24-9

I lost the coin toss to see who would start, John had the coin toss before I even knew about it. The first lap consisted of bottle neck, after bottle neck, after bottle neck, lots of people walking and getting frustrated, Getting stuck on single track behind a legion of geared cyclists all spinning in their 22x34 granny gears sucks a lot.


The second lap kind of let me know where I stand physically, and mentally. It went ok. I crashed once and bent my front disc rotor a little. The little "ching ching ching" as the wheel spun and the disc dragged through the caliper tourtured me for the rest of the race.

So there I was, cracking, dead, walking my bike at only 3pm on my third lap, I had at least one more lap to go provided John kept on his pace. People asked me if I was "ok," Robin felt bad about leaving me, and not riding with me - he figured he was leaving me for dead. Aaron Mock passed me and gave me some words of encouragement and a pat on the back - I don't know what he said, but I remember feeling better after that. John can tell you a story about some "Amy has food" comment or story I told him - I have no memory of ever saying anything like that.

The fourth lap, I was still hurting, my stomach was angry at the apple, 2 power bars and whatever else I ate - I honestly don't really remember. I know that I almost fell asleep waiting in the transisition area for John to come in. I heaved my exhausted body on my bike for what would be my last lap of the race. It started bad, worse than my third lap, then things started clicking, my bike was guiding me effortlessly through the forest, tearing around corners and floating over rock gardens, I started to feel that all too familer slide as my rear tire began loosing air. I figured I'd ride as far as possible before stopping to change it. I rode for what seemed like eternity, so I figured - I'll just blast some CO2 in there and limp it home. For some reason, I also stopped at the Twinke stop and ate 1/2 a Twinke - I was feeling like my body was cracking again. The Twinke saved my ride. I guzzled water and was feeling a lot better, stopping only 2 more times to inflate my slowly dying rear tire.

By the end...I was exhausted I ate some pasta salad, drank two beers and slept. It was a great course, a great race. It was made even better by the presence of the Planet Bike Compound. D*pow did a great job organizing it all. We had 2 EZ-up tents, 2 VW buses, about 10 tents for sleeping in, the Planet Bike Sprinter Van, 4 big dogs, 3 cook stoves, about 5 coolers full of food and beer, chairs, friendly new faces and fantastic old friends.