This has been a big fall. I've gone through with not one, but two really stupid athletic feats and lived report back on how stupid it was. Last Thursday and Friday I rode around in circles on a friend's backyard cyclocross course with 15 other oddballs. Thanks to recent rain, most the course was simply a long 2-inch-deep track of sticky peanut butter mud.
No, the mud wasn't nutritious and delicious. It felt like peanut butter that's just been pulled from a fridge. It's both incredibly had to move while still sticking to everything. I had a nice system down when ever time I carried my bike I'd rip the gobs of mud and leaves out from behind the brakes. Yes, this was fun.
Dan K was kind enough to put together a video of the event. You can check it out on his blog. All in all, this was actually a lot more fun that my 6-hour half-walking marathon that went off under blue skies and far more comfortable level. Maybe it's because riding along side friends at an unsanctioned backyard 24-hour race is simply a lot more fun that being lost in a crowd of 10,000 rando's.
I ended up 3rd on the day and figure I probably spent somewhere between 14 and 16 hours on the course. Only 8 of the 16 competitors made it to the end and among the non-finishers were an Olympic track racer, national masters mountain bike champ, and one of the top 10 24-hour racers in the country. Maybe they just had too much sense to continue. When I look at the finishers, we've got a couple guys that drank more than a case of beer a piece (one beer per lap), an Army vet that rolled cigarettes between laps, and a guy that tends to pee himself when he's having a good time. You tell me who the winners are.
See more of Douglas Benedict's race photo's here.
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