Decisions, Decisions...

It's been two weeks since I last posted, but I've been really busy with school.

The 12 Hours of So Cal was this past weekend. I raced on team "Blood, Sweat and Beers" in 3-person open with fellow Xterra racers James (http://www.va2ca.blogspot.com/) and Luke. A well organized event with a steep, challenging course. Oddly enough, I liked it! We managed to score ourselves 2nd in our class behind the factory sponsored team Cytomax/KHS; a team made up of professional MTB racers. We did 11 laps between the three of us, while the KHS guys put together an amazing 15 laps! Wow!

Luke went first, I went second and James went last in the order. We came up with the order based on night riding skills since James and I haven't ridden at night much and the first racer would have to do the most night laps. Luke doesn't slow down much at night since he does night rides once a week. I need to get more night riding in so I don't slow down so much when the sun goes down.

Speaking of laps...one and two went really well and I felt good; hammered after such a hard effort, but strong. On lap three I came down with bad stomach cramps that hurt so bad I was unable to push very hard. I did my best during my down time between laps three and four to alleviate them, but they hit me even harder on lap four. Luckily, we were in no danger of getting caught from behind and we weren't catching first, but lap 4 was really hard.

Overall, we had fun. My g/f camped out with me and the boys and hanging out around a campfire after the race talking training and racing with my team mates was cool. I even won $20 in the raffle. If you're contemplating an endurance MTB event like this, I highly recommend this one. The race director did a great job and I'd race another one of his races again. It would be really cool if our team could get together for all three 12-hour races at Vail in 2008 and go for the series win.
http://www.12hrsoftemecula.com/

Next up? Volunteering for the Turkey Tri 11/25 at Bonelli Regional Park (www.make-u-fit.net) and taking 2 full weeks off from training before starting back up the first week of December. Im posting my plans for the 2008 season next week, so keep your eyes peeled.

E