Oh for the love of Pete. Why oh why do I do this race. It's like intentionally slamming your toe with a hammer...over and over and over again. I think during the ascent I passed a team mate and wondered aloud, "why?" To which there was no audible response. But then again, maybe I only thought I said why. Who knows? Sure, the climbers love this ride, to which I aspire, but really, you can't get Jumbo into a leotard as you can't get me to go up quickly. There is inspiration, no doubt. A couple of the Pegasuarus' climbed to personal bests. They work at it and work at it and don't eat. Good for them. Every year I say I'm going to hit this ride with all I've got. I'm going to lose the weight, I'm going to do the climbing repeats, I'm going to go fast like the wind. And every year I come in heavy "J" having done more power riding than climbing in anticipation of the upcoming cross season. It's all so very confusing.

Anyway, it was a great day indeed and my time was good enough to not be totally embarrasing (57:50). Sub 54 gets you a "good ride, Cowboy" from the other serious racers and a sub hour gets you a gawky like stare from the weekenders. I made the best of a rough morning. I borrowed a wheel from the Griffociraptor as mine is in the shop. I switched out the cog that morning with the one I've been using and I forgot the spacer. I got to the course in plenty of time to warm up, but noticed a weird skipping while on the trainer. I ignored it thinking it was due to the trainer, but it persisted. Finally I got off and to my horror immediately diagnosed the problem and cursed myself for wrenching on raceday. Thus I started my panic search through the parking lot looking for a cog tool, chain whip and wrench to take off the cog (for no earthly reason I had a spacer in the back of my car). I was able to come up with some screw drivers and screwey looks but no tools. Finally a teammate, in total calmness pointed me to an onsite mechanic underneath a huge banner that read: "MECHANIC". Panic does funny things. He got me going with a couple of twists of his wrench and I was back in business. With time now running out, I put on my race outfit and made my way to the line. No warm up. I made my way to the front and into the first wave. This was the first year that you had to declare a potential time, and I opted for the subhour group. I immediately noticed that all the participants had pink numbers and mine was white. That can't be good as I quickly dismissed it from my brain. With about two minutes to the start, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see the official. "You're in wave three Long Hair. You'll have to move back," he said. I lodged some half baked attempt to stay forward with the fast group, but he wasn't having any of it. Later I found out that Mark Caldwell suffered the same fate but refused to go back stating, "but I'm Mark Caldwell. I fininshed 9th last year!!" Whatever. I moved back and found myself with love handled gapers, unicyclists, tandems, Burley's, and mountain bikers. Egad. Luckily there were a few others that were moved back save Mark Caldwell so there were some guys to work with, but I was starting to get a little exacerbated. Finally the horn blew and we were off. I was able to make my way to the front and lead through a tough little down hill section that is fairly pot-holed and then onto the main climb. 57 minutes later I crested and all was joyful. Until the next time I lose my marbles and go for it again. But next year I'm breaking 54 minutes. I mean it this time. Really mean it.

Johnny DontclimbFast