all in good days work

Well Swanson race came and went. It was perfect conditions for the race. I did line up at start line of marathon event. I didn’t know how to the events will unfold. There was a lot of experience in first row all seasoned endurance riders Cornbread, MG, and the little mustachio buddy EB. Throw in couple of of cat 1 guys in mix and you have pretty steep competition. I really didn’t have great  expectations, I knew  I would do better than  bone bender as I didn’t spend day before building earthen structures.  I also knew in order to even see top guys you have to go pretty hard for first couple of laps.  (Side note when Ryan says the course will  be in perfect condition he means it will be perfect at  12 pm not at 10 am) First lap as pretty fast and greasy I managed to slide out maybe 1 minute after EB went Big Toes up on greasy corner.  Order  of things settled I think I was in 7th place.   And more importantly 2nd place in self proclaimed stache prime.  After first lap I passed two guys and I was in 5th place 30 seconds behind EB.  The laps turned and positioning didn’t change, I passed Ryan Atkinson on 5th lap and got passed by some dude flying swoobo jersey. I  wanted to be be as far from the woods as possible when cat 1 race started. Mission accomplished.   Kent was the first one to pass me up and then out of nowhere MOD pulled like minute behind him, wow that was out of nowhere, what was even more surprising is the fact that after mark Came through there was no one else for about 30-45 seconds, wow dude impressive.  It  got close to 3 hour mark  I think I made the cut off by 4-5 minutes. The judge said you have time for one more, without hesitation I threw all my gels and electrolyte containers out and proceeded to  to go out for one more lap. The sense of urgency quickly disappeared as I saw the guy who was about minute  back sit up and look at his watch, yup that’s all the clues I needed he was done and chance of anyone coming behind him were pretty much nil. I did a slow cool down lap talked to some people jumped my bike. Wondered where the hell is brunt but pretty much put in the slowest lap of the day  just chilling.  After I got past the finish line I was informed that yes mr. modest, Corey has indeed won the category. Brunt flatted and MG had some issues with digestion. That put me in fourth or maybe fifth, sweet bacon sweet bacon indeed. Not bad for going against pretty much all cat 1 guys.

Congrats on the win Corey, Kent, Joshua  and on 2nd place for single speeding MOD. Later that night we drank beer and talked about bikes and shredded  some rock band guitars. Good times. Sunday MK and made our wish list. Who knew it was such long ordeal. Not me..

Photo courtesy of Heather Wolf