Just like this year, this race was awesome. Many thanks to Tim Schopen for putting on a great race and leaf blowing the entire course again! The course was soaked but it really wasn't muddy except for the few obvious mud holes that there were lines around. I had the unfortunate idea of preregistering so I was the first one out of the gate. They did the start as a time trial with 1 minute intervals. So I was the official rabbit.
I took off HARD and wanted to make sure I was the first one to finish. I was cooking into the singletrack and either my cleat was loose or the pedal was fouled but the right pedal wouldn't release so I went down on a couple of slow uphill turns on wet roots. I basically hit the ground, shot up, ran to the top of the hill and took off again. Those falls made me check my speed and I eased back a bit and the terrain got more friendly and I was reading the roots better. I started taking off again and flying. Winding through the trees, and killing the flowy parts all the while looking back for lights but nothing. So I kept hammering. I saw a few nice deer and still no lights from behind.
I knew I was within a couple miles from the finish so I put in a hard effort and came through the line strong. I had more in me but the cold start and the couple of falls made me slow down a bit. I finished 1st, no one passed and in a time of 1:05:15. I was happy with that. As the results came in there were only 2 experts in my class and I finished 2nd behind the other who was 3 minutes quicker. Overall I finished 10th of 56. So not too shabby. After finishing it was time to enjoy the fire, have a couple of beverages and enjoy the end of the race season...