truthfully (and im not trying to sound like a badass, since i barely made the time cutoff) it wasnt as hard as people chalked it up to be. id ride the course again on my own time when its not a goddamn rainforest.
i went out kinda hard in the beginning, knowing that i was gonna slow down on the second lap, so i tried to gain as many places i could from the jump so i could fall back and not be DFL.
as
@Johnny Utah would say "loooot of roadies out here" - i tried to clean as much tech as i could but every rock and root was like riding on ice. i was slipping and sliding everywhere, making me extremely frustrated especially on the second lap. i walked a lot of shit and that made me even more annoyed.
neutral rollout was fun and fast and we hit singletrack, 2 seconds in and im already walking that gnarly rock bridge. i could probably ride it dry but today i just didnt want to fall and shatter my patella on a rock so i walked, with the 20 people that walked.
this happened aproximately 9374 times today. every time i got more and more pissed.
i felt nice and strong till about mile 20, i flew past the aid station cuz i didnt need anything right there, and because i misunderstood the whole aid station arrangement i thought my drop bag would be at the halfway point, and the 17/40mi aid stations just had water/coke/heed etc.
at this point about 800 people have passed me because suckmode is just comin in hot.
then the rain comes. light at first then heavy. my glasses fog up completely and now i have white shields over my eyes. whats this? technical downhill. awesome. oh and now the rain has sweat dripping into my right eye, so i basically have flaming oceanwater in one eye and my vision is reduced to one eye that can see 1/4" above my glasses and the burning is making me blink uncontrollably.
i have to stop just take off my glasses. my shitty vision is better than what semblance of sight i have with the glasses anyway.
a billion more poeple pass me.
get to the halfway and i ask
"where the dropbags at?"
"uhh at the aid station at mile 17"
well fuck. noones fault but my own. some nice racers at their car fill up my bottles so i can survive long enough to get to the aid station at mile 40. where i have some nuclear pre workout caffiene drink waiting to keep me from falling asleep.
i pretty much just drifted further and further into my dark place the longer the second lap went on. i was walking even more stuff that i was totally destroying on lap one and that was pissing me off.
id ride a few hundred feet and almost eat it trying to maintain control as my front tire slipped off every angled rock and off camber root. over. and over. and over. and over. and over. and over again. I wish i could go into rage mode but i just dont have the energy.
im all alone for like 15 years and finally the downhill to the mile 40 aid station. i chug my kidney destroying caffiene poison and a 3 cups of water, smash whatever food i grab first out of my bag and haul ass.
for like 10 seconds. then i resume my 5mph pace and continue to get more and more frustrated at how little i can actually ride stuff.
at around 20 years in i notice my shifter is hard to throw. its not broken, my hand is. my grip has been reduced to that of an 80yr old woman in boca raton. i have to straighten my thumb and basically stab my shifter every time. which happens about 50 times a minute.
my forearms are on fire. im getting cramps. in my fucking forearms. wtf.
the last ten miles consisted of me all alone periodically cursing out loud, because i have nothing to direct my anger at. the course isnt hard, i just am sucking ass bigtime.
finally i rip the downhill that leads to the road, i can see light coming into the rainforest. thank jeebus. just drill this road section and were done.
soon as i start seeing cars my left inner thigh starts to cramp up, hard. fuck you thigh i dont give a shit right now. i crawl up the road and they record my time.
6:40 says the garmin. i think i can manage under 6 hrs if i dont fuck up on the feedzone and the course isnt a slippery deathtrap.
my hands still suck. i had to open a new bottle of bronners and i had to use my teeth to get the seal off because i cant grip anything.
i only ate it once and it was nothing, i didnt break anything except maybe my hands for a while, the climbs were no big deal. just the wetness really screwed me up, and the mental hit i took when i realized i had no feedzone for an hr and a half screwed me up some more. then my hands. goddamnit my hands.
id do it again.
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