The races early in the day enjoyed frozen ground with a little snow. Our race at 2pm wasn't as fortunate. The snow quickly melted and the frozen ground thawed, leaving most of the course a soggy grass nightmare. It was bad enough that I swapped pedals on my 2 bikes and started on my pit bike. I'd rather thrash that one since it was 1/2 way there from preriding the course anyway. At least half the course had to be contested on foot. There were 3 running sections that were at least 80-100 meters long, plus the short "run-up" sections and a few other places on the course. After completely screwing up the first turn, I still managed to lead the first part of lap one ahead of Brad Cole and Shadd Smith. Brad Cole quickly ran past me in a tight little section that I stayed on a rode. Shadd quickly got by me and went after Brad. I stayed close for the first 2 laps but my running form went south once the bike weight reached 30lbs from all the muddy leaves, and the shoes were 5 pound bricks. Jeff Winkler ran by me at some point. After 3 laps, the pit bike was done, so to my disgust, I swapped bikes. The fresh bike shifted great, but the bigger Challenge Grifo's were no match for the mud. At least it was 10 lbs lighter on my shoulder, that was now extremely bruised. The course just got worse with each lap. The fresh bike was rendered useless after 2 laps but fortunately that was it. 5 laps in over 60 minutes made for a very slow average speed. I was in pretty good shape after a great week of riding, but having to run that much crushed my legs. Pics taken my Roger Harrison.
