The Terror of Teaberry

There certainly is a reason for that name.  I think it's going to be haunting me for weeks.

Went out with CB the day before to camp out, and relax under the stars for a bit.  It was a great night, until I was awakened with the imposing sound of rain falling on the tent.  I thought, 'well, hopefully it won't rain too much tonight, and at least it should be nice tomorrow.'

We woke up to just a little bit of standing water.

Woke up with the tent basically floating in about an inch of water.  It could have been worse, at least it didn't leak.  Got moving slowly with my usual coffee and oatmeal ritual, did a quick once over on the bikes, and time to line up.  Line up on the road, getting ready to go, and all of a sudden "OK, everyone drop your bikes!!"  Wonderful, a le mans start.  I really dislike running.  Especially in mountain bike shoes.  They sent us out on about a half mile or so jog through the woods, back to the bikes, and we're off.

Head down a pretty cool rocky down hill, to a long double track climb, where for a short time I was ahead of the eventual winners of the single speed class.  That was about to change as it turned downhill, as these guys were all locals, and knew the perfect line to fly down the hill.  Alternated for a few miles between double track down hills, and tight singletrack climbs, eventually coming out on a long double track climb, before the fun really started.

Hook a right at the top of the climb, and the rocks started, and I guess that you can say the dirt ended.  Up until this point, I was back and forth with my friend Aaron, and I started putting a little gap on him.  All that I remember about this section is that it was mostly rideable, but I just kept losing my momentum, and had a hard time getting moving again.  Finally got through it, down some cool switchbacks, climb back up, and there's the aid station.

Heading down the road a bit, back into the woods to where the true terror begins to show itself.  Think big rocks, with rock ramps leading up to them, and rock dropoffs on the other side, onto rocks.  On the edge of a cliff at times.  I kept thinking that this would be a great place to screw around and try to learn how to get through it, just not so much racing in it.  A couple of times, I just had to stop and laugh, and think "really??  you want me to do what to get past that?  MAYBE if it was dry, no way in hell when it's wet."  Oh, I forgot to mention that it was still raining.  Not bad, just enough to make everything interesting.  Maybe a little too interesting.  I saw a couple of people getting close to me from time to time, including Aaron, but I was somehow able to slip away.

After that section, it really wasnt too bad.  Made it to the next aid station, where I caught another singlespeeder who was stopped when I got there, and was still there when I left.  I've really been making an effort to not screw around at the stops, and I think it's been paying off.  The trail from here was alternating single and double track, mostly climbing, with a couple spots of pretty serious exposure to a steep, long drop down to the creek.  I saw one guy in the 20 mile race almost topple over the hill.  He was a bit shaken up.  Near the top of this climb was where I caught Montana, which I couldn't believe.  He is still recovering from the Breck Epic, I suppose.

Near the end, I finally caught up with an Indy Fab rider, who passed me while I was filling my bottles at aid station 1.  Was able to get past him on the road climb, and had a decent gap on him going into aid station 3, where I stopped at to get a litte bit of water, because I was completely out again.  I should have asked how long it was to the finish, as I thought that we had 8 miles to go, when in reality we only had 4.   We battled it out in the single track, when I finally conceded, and let him past me.  What I didn't realize, is that we were about 100 yards from the finish, and he was able to take 5th place from me. 

 I'm tired

In the end, I am just glad to have finished, when so many people didn't.  I'm pretty happy with 6th place at this race, especially since 4 of those that beat me were locals, and 2 of them built most of the trails.  I'm also happy that I beat my goal of 5 hours by a little bit.  I know, 5 hours isn't much of a goal for a 36 mile race, but this was far from a normal race.  I am also especially happy to not have broken myself, or my bike at this one.  Time to rest up a little bit before some more craziness....