Did the Rock

I can't remember the last time we actually had nice weather for this race. With rain earlier in the week the trails were in perfect condition! I thought this was supposed to be a pretty low key event until I lined up next to the likes of Brian Matter, both Lalonde's, Carlos, and Thomas Bender. The start was kinda crazy we were all just standing around our bikes talking then people started yelling GOOOOOOO! People started jumping on their bikes and others were just looking around. I had a good start and moved to the front, I wanted to be leading over the first logs to keep from getting tangled with anyone. After that Matter and the LaLondes came around and poured on the coals. Bender was on my wheel and I was pushing about as hard as I wanted to for a 38 mile race. About 8 miles into the 12 mile lap Bender started complaining about the hills. I turned up the heat on a few to see how he would respond and sure enough he started to fade. By the end of the first lap he was gone. Marko had flatted so I was stuck in 3rd place no-mans land. I put down my head and hammered knowing that there was a strong field chasing, and hoping my legs would hold out the distance.
Lap 3 I was starting to suffer but was still pushing a big gear and had the power I needed to get over the climbs. Mid lap Bender and Marko caught me, I jumped in the middle and tried to recover a bit. Bender put down the hammer on a long sticky climb, Marko responded but I couldn't hang. My legs were cramping and I knew I had to back off if I wanted to finish. I tried to keep them in site as long as I could to keep my pace from falling off too bad.
I managed to hold off a hard charging Jim Peterson to roll in 5th. The race really felt good and only went to prove that this is going to be a tough year, seems like everyone has been doing their homework this winter!