Right now I’m sitting in the living room trying to muster up the energy to make myself some breakfast. I’m dehydrated, hungry, tired, and a little foggy upstairs. How did I get here?
Eight days ago I raced my 8th BT Epic. Trish and I went down early and spent a night in St. Louis then made our way to the amazing Bass’ River Resort Friday afternoon. This year we tent camped, so after seeing up camp I went out for a short ride with a buddy who was there for his first time.
Saturday morning dawned and it was just cold enough that as we stood in summer kit on the start line there was a little shivering going on. I started the race in the second row of my wave. As we climbed to the top of the first climb I took some turns taking pulls with my buddy Greg. We were in the top 30 or so into the woods. As we approached the first climb in the singletrack I prepared to dismount and run up like every year before. It’s not a long climb, but it’s fairly steep and there are roots and a lot of loose rock. Someone normally screws up and slips and then there’s a big jamb resulting in a lot of riders walking. This year I celebrated with the fellow next to me as we crested the climb still atop our steeds.
Only a couple miles into the singletrack I came up on my friend Drew and we decided it would be in our best interest to work together for as long as we could. Not long after that, Justin joined in on the train as well. At the Berryman said station we were still together.
After the water stop we started to lift the place a bit. On the longest climb of the race we decided to take it a little easy so that we could smash it once we reached the gravel. Justin came unhooked on the climb up the first of the the sisters so Drew and I pushed on. We rolled into the finish together with a time of 4:44. Jeremy was only a couple minutes back, then Justin just a couple behind him. Thankfully, all of the folks I know had a great race! No mechanicals, no big wrecks. It was a beautiful weekend and although I didn’t hit my goal time I was still super pleased.
Since it worked out well last year and our club introduced a new MTB park this year we decided that if the weather was good we’d try another Keg-O-Dirt the weekend after BT. Yesterday, except for the wind, the weather was amazing. Five of us set out to tackle the ~134 mile beast of an adventure. We fought headwinds on the road sections all morning, but the trails were great! One of the group had no intention of finishing, and he bowed out after three parks. We continue on, but when we finished the 6th park I was in rough shape. After a DG stop for water and munchies I was feeling a bit better so we got the road to Farmdale, our seventh of eight parks. When we got there I felt worse and Trisha said I was pale. (Once I got home we’d find that it was due to significant dehydration) my heart rate wouldn’t come down and I felt terrible. I pulled the plug rather than ending up in a-fib at the back of the park. We hung out and still supported the others as they became the first, and probably only people that will ever complete this insane task. I was so proud that they did it!
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