A race, a vacation, and a race

Time for my belated recaps. By the way, thanks everyone for the words about the back. I have been stretching, working, massaging, and applying icy hot to my back. It finely is feeling good and I was able to crank out a harder 4+ hour ride today with no pain. Yes Dan, I hope to defend my title in Lacrosse. I have another 24 hour race in my sights so stay tuned (as if you really care).

Race #1 Duluth, Spirit Mountain

This was to be a last minute race a week before the big race at Nine Mile. I lined up at the front as it was either that or the way back. The race started at the base of the hill with NO lead up, and I went for it at the start. My first race at Spirit Mountain and I got the hole shot to the singletrack . Having never ridden here, all I knew is that the next section of trail would be singletrack and descending for the most part. The singletrack instead was a gnarly, rocky, no good line, rock'em sock'em trail. With my too hard of a start and getting whipped around I went backward fast. The race would be 2 laps and it took me the first 1/2 lap to recover. As a teammate said the descent was harder then the climb.

Second lap was going well. I had passed some guys on the main climb and I was feeling much more comfortable in the singletrack. A blow out of the front tire required a new tube so I flipped my bike over and went to work. Somehow I managed to drop the wheel and it rolled a good 20 feet down the hill. I did manage to find that comical at the time. When I hopped on the bike I found that I managed to leave my bottle open and the contents of said bottle were now hydrating plants. Oh well. I rode the last 3/4 of the lap with no water on a super hot day. Got a chance to talk with some guys and I rolled in for 25th place. Ben rocked it for his first MNSCS race. Now pics.

Move over suckas!



Who got the hole shot? I got the hole shot.

And a pic after I went backwards, hard.

Vacation

Front load and I headed up to the cabin in Cable for a week. Yeah, I did some riding at Rock Lake which is da bomb. Mostly we hiked, canoed, and chilled though. We had a blast and cannot wait to spend more time up there.

I believe the state park we went to was Granite falls. Nina liked the river.

Is someone tired?

Yeah, it was as fun as it looks.

Hmmm. Maybe you should NOT be looking at the candy. Picture taken at the candy shop in Hayward that has a crazy large selection. This picture was just the tip.

Stopped here in the middle of on canoe trip for lunch. Good stuff.

Beavers, geese, loons, and eagles (especially one huge bald one) were just part of the wildlife that greeted us on our canoe trips.

Oh, and begging little ducks as well.

24 hours of 9 Mile

I sorta gave my recap on this. I looked back at my lap times and was happy with what I saw. Thanks as always to the wife for coming out and crewing for me.

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Do you really spend this much time reading blogs at work?