Well I just got in so I figured I'd post my experience before I pass out...
Friday night...chillin at the hotel watching the weather as some severe T-storms were heading our way spawning tornadoes and grapefruit sized hail...wonderful. I actually slept pretty well through the rumbles as I'm sure the campers did not.
Friday morning as expected we got quite a bit of rain but stopped by 5 before the race start. Locals say it drains well but I'm a little skeptical. 7 am the race was on as we climbed on pavement from the center of town(Roads were closed for the race start which was cool). The first 30 miles were ALL singletrack. It ranged from nice cruising singletrack to sections of greasy Tymor trail. It was fun but treacherous. I did some magical ninja move to avoid one tree(and an early DNF) and I flew off the side of one of the greasy trails at high speed. The remainder of the race was a bit of gravel, a bit of pavement, a bit of doubletrack, a few hike-a-bikes, some more awesome singletrack, and a 80 foot dam to climb up with 6 stories of cement stairs 2 miles before the finish. Overall I'd say it was 50% singletrack, 35% doubletrack and gravel roads and 15% pavement. It was a mountain biker's course for sure. I believe I finished 40th out of 72 in a time of 10:24:40. And just for the record...I beat Floyd...he DNF'd due to a crash
I also had a few cool moments. I ran into a guy in the parking lot as we were all checking in so I was chatting with him and up rolls Chris Eatough. So we just BS'd for a couple of mins and the other dood donned a Trek jersey and rode off with Chris. Floyd was staying at my hotel and got to see him a few times and hear his rant as the Coke machine wouldn't give him his soda....lol. Also got to ride with Carey Lowery for 20 miles or so. We chatted it up as she said she was having a bad day as she left her legs at the Cohutta in TN. So we did a little paceline on some railroad bed to catch our breath and at mile 80 I lost her. She killed this climb that I needed to walk up. She finished 10 mins ahead of me. What a strong lady! It was a great time and now I need to rest and ice my knee. I can't wait for the Wilderness...