Rhetts Run.

The two weeks leading up to this race I have had my best road rides and was feeling better than I ever had on the mountain bike. Other than missing the SS after switching to gears for this race everything was pretty set. Me and Nick headed out early enough on Sunday morning to make sure and have enough time to get a pre ride in. I had raced here before but its been about 3 years. The course is pretty tight and twisty single track about 4.5 miles long. Lucky enough for us we had the pleasure of getting a good rain shower before the race to make things nice and slick. I don't know what we would do with out rain! It was nice to see so many familiar faces lining up in the Marathon class. Good stuff. The race started off a little slower than usual but with the wet rocks and roots there was no way I was wanting to go any faster. Nate took the whole shot which was fine with me considering this was his home course. The dude is smooth he was hooking us up with all the good lines and got us through the first lap pretty fast. Going into the second lap Nate let me lead with Jason Stiger and Jeff Winkler following closely. Thought it would be perfect to start picking up the pace. I know Jason is used to going out harder and I know Jeff is super fast so I thought at the very least we could put some good time into everybody else. Things were going great and then pop the front tire went flat without any chance of Stan's sealing it. Got the tube changed out pretty quick when I went to use the Co2 the whole end of it was gone? Lucky enough a racer had one for me to use and I was back in the race without to much time lost. I didn't get to far when I flatted in the rear, I always carry two tubes for this reason but today I forgot to put one in my saddle bag. After a few racers had offered me tubes I finally took one, I hate to mess other racers race up to help me but very appreciated!! So I was back in the race. Finishing up the second lap I saw Jeff not to far back and it gave me some good motivation to try and stay ahead of him. I couldn't believe I lost 22 minutes or so from flats, pathetic! Going into the third lap I think I was trying to hit it to hard and flatted again through one of the rocky sections. When I looked up Chad was there with a flat also. Neither one of us had any more tubes and I was pretty certain that air was not going to stay in my tires today. I had mentioned to Chad that we could walk the rest of the course over the next two hours get our three laps in and not dnf. And o yea watch some kick ass mountain bike racing. It was a ton of fun watching the cross country expert racers battle it out along with the marathon guys. It was cool to see everybody suffering so bad and still enjoying it, it was cool to get a different perspective of the race from a spectators point of view. It has been a long time since I have watched a race from the sidelines. Still amazed at how many people wanted to help us out, I think that's why I love mountain biking so much. In the end me and Chad still had some good fun with a sprint for the finish. I will definitely prepare a little different in the future. All good motivation comes out of everything!