24 hours of Great Glen

A short little write up of the 24 hours of Great Glen that happened last weekend. This was the race that I was putting all my marbles in with, the race that I said in early spring that I would win. Those statements ussually bite me and people in the ass pretty hard, but as it turns out I could start being a fortune teller, as I was able to pull it out and race long and hard to take the win in the solo single speed category.

The competition was amazing. Dave (insert name) was never more than 45 minutes behind me and was somewhat of the slave driver that kept me riding though the night, when I ussually break down in a 24 at 10pm. Knowing he was there kept me motivated to keep trugding through the night. I was also that guy, who on Sunday morning was running the technical sections, and I mean running in the literal sense of the word also, which may have some reason why it is Friday and I am still spent.

All in all, everything worked great, no mechanicals, loads of positive vibes given and received, and no lookng back thinking I could have done something different, other than heading out at 11:55am Sunday for lap number 21 to be one up on second.

24 hours of GG

Passing my nemesis at 11:15 am sunday morning when he was going out under the tunnel to the other side of the road and I was heading back from that section where he told me I had it and to enjoy the last lap. Which is what I did, this was the lap that I had worked so hard to finish, the last lap of Great Glen withmy winning the solo single speed class. My nemesis was this guy Dave from the LIttelton Landsharks, we had a gentleman's race going from about 4pm saturday when we both were a lap up on everyone else, until the early morning time when we were within 30 minutes. There was not so much attacking, but slugging away at the course, me with a 34:20, him with a 32:24. Two polar opposite gear ratios, both suited for the course and the race. Without this competetion I highly doubt that I would have gotten my desired 20 laps in

The real surprising thing, and something that I learned alot about myself was that this was mostly self supported since my loyal pit crew was racing on the backcountymagazine.com team. So I was left up to my own demise of remembering to drink, eat and change some clothing, basically I was more in tuned with what was going on. With all that, no problems at all.

It was awsome to ride with everyone out there, Jeff W., Andy S., and Harry who won the solo 19-35, all those who I met at the Jay Challnge in 2004, where all this endurance stuff started. What sealed the deal for me was, going out at 12:30am for a night lap with Kris, since it was her first night lap ever, this was after my 30 minute rest, getting out there and putting this relaxed lap in put me one lap up and allowed me to sleep another 30 minutes.