There is what you want to do, what you could of did, but in the end there is only what you did and that is i raced my butt off for a finish time of 8 hrs 35 minutes. a lot of things can happen in a race of 100 miles and im sure a little bit of something happen to everybody at some point!
anyway this is how the weekend got started left work at 4 on thursday made it to the edge of Michigan by about 10 30 that night were I found the rest stop motel, this trip was all about cheap! so i crashed in the back seat. got back on the road around 7 friday morning it was still a good couple of hour drive before i got to manistee, were i found a big K mart to load up on some food and enjoy a big stack of pancakes. I got to the race sight about 11 30. very well organized they already had everything set up and ready for check in. got that out of the way and went for a preride, this course was marked better than any course ive ever been on. got the preride out of the way the legs felt great. pretty much just hung around and ate the rest of friday, camped that night at the race site made it easy for race day.
So race day came very early with the time change i was up at 4am (brain time) 5am local time. ate a bagel was to nervous to eat anything else should of ate more. warmed up on the bike for about 10 or 15 minutes knew the race start was going to be fast, before I knew it we were lining up on the road, it was cool seeing so many fast racers at this race...
The race started pretty fast on the road everybody trying to get a good spot for the single track, the single track came quick and so did the first climb it was hard finding lines through the people pushing there bikes, the climb was pretty steep and sandy very tough to ride. the pace was pretty fast on the first lap just was having fun hanging on! got a stick caught in my derailleur towards the end of the first lap kind of worked out perfect got out of the pace line and in to my own groove. second lap was kind of boring passed a few people had a few people pass me just tried to keep up a good pace. third lap came quick at the top of the climb I remember thinking the race is already half over tried to keep a good pace. under 8hrs seemed possible, by the time I passed the aid station I was feeling really good (about 12 miles in to the lap). Everything was going great and then i realized i lost my water bottle somewhere, not a big deal i still had a camelback. lucky me i got about 2 drinks out of it before it was empty. The good thing was at the time i wasnt really bothered by it figured i only had about 11 miles or so to get back. felt really good picked up my pace was having fun, ever have that feeling of feeling to good? That is a bad thing, that pretty little wall decided it was going to show up at my party. So i made it in from lap three was feeling pretty bad. grabbed 2 water bottles this time and filled the camelback and drank a whole lot, of course probaly to much. Didnt really matter my stomach was pretty jacked up.
So lap 4 started very slow for me, took a long time to start feeling good again but by the time i got to the aid station felt like i was ready to ride again, still kept the pace slow just wanted to enjoy the rest of this race. as each mile got closer i was picking the pace up a little more, was still setting times in my head that i thought i could finish by. it was a great feeling to finish this race, never doubted that i would..... biggest things i was stoked about, never got any cramps, never lost focus, was always thinking what i would do different next time! great experience
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