Leesburg Baker's Dozen

Another weekend just means one more shot at doing stupid human tricks. With that Wifey, Jason, Matty, Dan K, F'ing Gary,and others headed down to Leesburg for the Baker's Dozen.

Wifey and I had rode the course when we did the XC race earlier this year, but we wanted to do a pre ride without 3-4 inches of snow on the ground just to check thing out a little better. The course was perfect, just damp enough to keep the dust down and not wet enough to....bring the cow patties to life we'll say.

The course was great, seven and a half mile laps of flat (even thou someone did start adding hills about midway thru the race...not sure how that worked) none technical just balls out fun.

So after the pre ride and way to little BS'ing with friends Wifey and I hit the hotel for some dinner and an earlyish night.

The opening gun went off at nine and we were off on our 13 hour tour. I started out a little quicker then I want to, but I wanted less to be stuck in traffic...so all was good. My lap times started right at the 30 minute mark and slowly moved up into the lows 30's, then into the mid to upper 30's at around the 7-8 hour mark.

But body felt pretty good for the most part, did get a little nauseous around the 2-3 hour area but luckily it never came of it.....never eat one of those muffins from a Jiffy store, nothing good will come from it. Sorry to say some of the others in our group were not so lucky, Matty went down way to early....but like a champ he made a comeback after some time in the pits.

Wifey was in the pits a few times when I came rollin thru and got these:

yes, the kid's sport sideburns

and I love the salt areas on my shoulders and stomach

the face has nothing to do with the Endurolytes i was eating like candy

And while we're on the strange looking what the Hell faces....

But I've got nothing on this....I guess what happens in the pits does not always stay in the pits.

Not in pain, just turning off the Ipod to talk to Wifey

Other then riding a lap plus with Gary midway thru it was a pretty lonely day....but I kind of prefer it that way.

Nice shot below from Gary Ryan, you can check out all his race photos here.

Around the nine hour area the body was starting to not be happy with me. No one real thing, just little this and that. Did not want to drink more, no food sounded good, I'd stopped sweating and just overall was becoming a not so happy camper.

With this I got off the bike for the first time and hung out it the pit for 15-20 minutes to try to eat something. After a handful of potato chips eaten as slowly as a person could I rolled back out.

After a couple more laps in the pit I sat again. Dan K and Matty were giving me the how's things going questions as we saw Vegan Rob roll in and out once more on his way of beat us mear mortals down (dude is a freakin machine.) So the questioning turned more into BS'ing as I took off my helmet ands shoes.....the next thing I know I see Rob pitting again. I yelled over to his wife "Rob just left, what's up?" "He left 35 minutes ago" she replied laughing.....son of a....

Shoes and helmet back on I start to roll out when Dan K asks me "aren't you gonna put you lights on?" I've got 45 minutes till dusk I reply, "do you really think you're gonna do a sub 45 minute lap right now" he gives me. I know he was trying to look out for me and a smarter man would have listened to him, but we are talking about me here.

Everything went well and I got back in while it was still light. Lights on this time I rolled out on lap 16 and then straight into lap 17 as I was doing the lap timing math in my fuzzy head. I knew I'd make it in before the cutoff time but had no clue on my or others placing around me. So with a little under 11 and a half hours and 128 miles I was calling it a day....even with 25 minutes on the clock.

So what does calling it a day 25 minutes early cost you....two places. I feel from 7th to ninth overall in the 61 person field. I was as high as 4th before my 40 plus minute whatever the hell pitstop, but it is what it is. Should have would have, I firmly believe everything happens for a reason (even thou you may never know why.)

So with all that we have a couple of days to recover at home before the Wifey and I start doing our apart weekends. She's heading somewhat locally to a XC to qualify for Nationals and I'm from some reason driving to TN to do a 100 miler in the mountains.

I'm starting to think that everyone is right.....something may be wrong with me.