I won’t be going through a play by play of the race. I think that would be redundant. I will say that with out a doubt it was harder than I ever could have imagined. I trained HARD for a year and was amazed at how tough the CTR was. Could I have made it if my knee’s didn’t give out? Who knows really. The statistics say probably not. Look how many others dropped out.  Still I tried though.

I’ve gone over and over in my head things I could have done differently. I do think I’m going to change up my gear for “race mode” as compared to touring mode or just out for fun mode. Next time I do a multi day race I’m going to use a bivy bag and if I can afford it, a lighter weight sleeping bag. If I’m out for fun or touring I’m sticking with the hammock. The reason for the bivy you ask? I figure, I’m so damn tired I could pretty much fall asleep anyway/anywhere, might as well make it easier on my self to set up and crawl in. I’m also looking for that all important balance between lightweight gear so I can go faster as well as having some sort of comfort. I won’t be carrying as much on my back. I can load it up if it’s just for a couple days, but after that the shoulder fatigue on me just gets unbearable. I’m going with a smaller pack and I’m going to put most all of the weight on the bicycle. Right now I’m testing out a Wingnut pack. So far so good. I’ll update more on that later.

The biggest change of all for me will be that IF I go back, I’ll be on a geared bike. I don’t know what bike I’ll be on, I know what bike I want to be on. (ahem, hint hint, cough cough) One thing is for sure though, I don’t want to go through what I went through up there again. Hey, if I can’t handle using one gear fully loaded for day’s on end that’s fine with me. I’m there to ride a bike and have some fun, not ruin my knees just because I’m trying to prove that I’m a cool singlespeed rider. I know I’m a dork. Have you seen some of my pictures on Picassa? I have no shame. Really, I don’t.

So what to do from here? Well, for the next month my goal is to ride as much as possible with other people and not by myself. I’m tired of being out there for hours on end by myself. Even if that means riding with people who don’t necessarily go the same speed, I’m there to have a good time. My agenda is to not have an agenda. I’ll loose a little fitness, but who cares. I just want to have some fun. In October I want to go on a bikepacking trip in Arkansas and do a couple hundred miles on a long weekend. I also want to put together the Enchilda Buffet that Cody and I have talked about doing for so long. I’ll talk more about that later.

I’m sorry I didn’t post up a ride review or anything like that soon after the race. It was a REALLY tough time I was going through. I cried several times, once like a baby who didn’t get it’s way. I was very ashamed. Calling Cody and telling him I was out was one of the toughest parts. He and I talked for so long about it and had such high expectations and to be slammed down like that and to tell him I was out was super tough. Knowing my name had a line through it on the leaderboard, and having to call mtbcast.com and leave a message was another toughy.

Ok, enough rambling. So many thoughts and way to many words. I’ll update you all on my adventures this fall. I’ve got one or 2 I’m keeping close to my chest for now. I’m not sure if they’ll happen. If they do awesome. If they don’t, you’ll never know! I will also keep you updated on some of my gear choices as well as things that I’m testing. It’s in my opinion the funnest thing, testing different gear. I love to play with stuff.

Thanks for reading,

Sherpaxc

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