Hardcore 24

My Prayers and Thoughts are with the Friends and Family of Ben Pritchards. Ben tragically passed away during the Hardcore 24 on June 16th, 2007.

I'm not going to elaborate on the details here, you can search out on the intertubes if you need more.

Friday: I showed up at camp around 3pm or so. Our Camp Manager (Casey) was their to hold things over for us for a while. I headed out for my typical pre-ride, I had Lizzy with me (she wasn't coming to the race) and we climbed up thru the fire roads and up thru the pines into the open meadow. I caught her eyeing some deer and strayed her, but then she got loose and chased a deer I had missed. I yelled for a looong time. I was up there for a good hour plus looking for her. I rode down a fire road in the direction I thought she headed, twice! Finally, frustrated and upset I finished out the course flying down the orange trail and into camp. Where none other than queen dipshit Lizzy was waiting for me. I asked how long she had been there, and the Camp Cook said, "Oh, bout an hour or so..." grrr

Saturday: Awoke to the typical Suzanne special blueberry pancakes and sausages. Headed over to the course, where the camp manager seemed to be worn a little thin. I knew it would take some time to set-up a good camp, but no idea it involved a golf-cart xc race thru the trail ;). I was fired up and ready to go. It was go time, been waiting a while for this one. Hit the run my usual fairly slow self, but made big gains in the singletrack and up the fire road climb. I pushed it solid, eyeing the ergomo and watching my hr. Up and thru meadow and onto the Orange Trail I was battling another solo rider. We swooped thru Whitetrashistan and then away and up the 2nd fire road climb. On the descent on the way down I flatted. Tried sealing it with co2 (using stan's) and it took a few tries but got me back to camp. Once there we tried to use the floor pump to seal it, but finally we just swapped wheels out with the Paragon and I got rolling again.

Laps 2 and 3 were more of the same. I was sitting in 2nd place, but not by too much. I was just tapping out tempo and grinding along. 1000ft of climbing in 8 miles and 3 quick laps and I was starting to slip both power wise and mentally. I re-shifted my focus to the task at hand and grabbed some more endurolytes and some ibuprofin. Lap 5 I swung in for a quick sandwich and a chat with my mother as she had shown up to give some help for the night.

Lap 6 I started to pick it back up, Each lap I was feeling progressively stronger and faster. I was having a blast. In fact, Casey's pal Phil was over from Park City to run the race and tried playing a little downhill domination. In the section of trail that ran thru Whitetrashistan was where we set-up a makeshift feedzone. I came thru on my lap just ahead of Phil and dropped my water bottle. He however, tossed his bottle right at me. Missed me, but I did run it over. Everyone in camp saw and thought it was an argument, but we were just having fun and we chatted and laughed about it up the next climb.

Laps 7 and 8, 9 I was flying and my normalized power per laps was as much as my 2nd and 3rd laps. Lap 8, I pulled off a humdinger. As I was coming back to the start/finish area along the dike, I clipped my pedal. Seeing the pond was so close, I bailed as hard as I could to the right to land on the dirt. Well, the bike was getting a little dirty, and ol Mary Poppins (that's her name 'cause she's 'supercal'ifragilistic) decided it was time for a bath. The bike landed dead in the pond, fully submerged. I reached in an pulled out the "Swamp Thing", she was covered in seaweed, almost every inch. I was laughing hard as I pulled it off, piece by piece
feeling best ever. Lap 9 I just was out there killing it. Each time thru camp I was chatting or singing to the iPod, and telling everyone how good I felt. In fact I was an entire lap up on the field by this point.

Unfortunately that was when I was turned around on the course.

We did have an awards ceremony, where I was congratulated as the Men's Solo Overall Winner. This was an honor and what I had worked for all season. However, under the circumstances, this was not the way I had wanted to earn it. It was difficult today to answer questions to those who had no idea. They would ask about the race, how I did, etc. I filled them in that I had won, and the circumstances surrounding. Each reaction, was of course of shock and suprise.

While honored to have won the race, I am saddened by the loss of a fellow rider.

Currently playing in iTunes: God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash