Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, today July 6, 2008 was my 46th birthday. Unfortunately, a couple of the other competitors in the men's beginner vet 35+ at Camp Hilbert race #3 didn't get the memo and didn't let me win. I have to hand it to Dan Abernathy and Rick Duncan. They finished first and second in 1:10:27 and 1:10:28 respectively. I finished in third at 1:10:35, a mere eight seconds behind Dan.

The race turned out to be a sprint for 12 miles (2 six mile laps). We started on the entrance road to Camp Hilbert so that we wouldn't have to negotiate a 180 degree turn to enter the single track like we did in the first race. This was significant for a couple of reasons. First, the entrance road is flat and it is downhill to the singletrack entrance whereas from the other direction we climbed a short hill before descending to the U-turn. The other reason was that this morning I practiced the sprint start from the wrong location three times because I was determined to stay with the leaders instead of letting them go and then trying to catch them later. Anyway, the race start was an easier sprint and bomb downhill and I was able to enter the single track in fifth place. Not ideal, but not bad. I quickly picked off two of the guys in front of me and was hoping to catch Dan and Rick. I also had to pass quite a few of the other riders that started in front of us. One little guy, who had to be about eight or nine, bless him, was riding along with his Dad right behind him. As I came up on them I asked if I could pass and the Dad started to try to get his son to move to one side of the trail but the kid wouldn't do it. He stayed right in the middle of the trail. So I patiently asked to be let by again and again the boy ignored his father. At that point I said, "come on buddy, you gotta let me by." At this point his Dad moved off to the left and stopped so I shot to the right and tried to squeeze by in a really bad section of roots and lost it a little. Cut the dickens out of my leg right at my Achilles tendon area on my pedal but hopped quickly back on and rode away. I ended up crashing two more times on the first lap which cost me at least twenty seconds but finished the lap in around 35:30 or so.

I was determined to catch those guys so I just kept going as hard as I could on the second lap. There were fewer folks to pass so it made for a quicker lap. I kept seeing guys on the loop backs who I thought was Dan but I couldn't tell for sure. Then near the end I caught up to a guy who I thought could have been one of them but I wasn't sure. Whenever I would get close he would accelerate so I couldn't pass him. Then as we got to the dam I ran into a flotilla of riders and knew I wouldn't be able to get past all of them. I got past two or three and took a look on the loop back and thought I saw Dan just ahead in a really root section. I sprinted as hard as I could but could not get past the other guy. Than as I crossed the line I saw Dan bent over his bike totally spent. Rick came over and shook my hand and said nice race. I wish the race was three laps or one mile longer because I would have caught those guys and then we may have had some fun getting to the finish line. Such is racing!

I finished third in my category and was seventh overall beginner. Looking forward to the Battle at Burke Farm next week!