I feel kind of bad that Dan Swanson posted before I did this week. It won't happen again. School has been taking up all my time as of late and I am trying to fit into the groove of things. I have alot of stuff to do outside of class this semester besides just study. Lab projects and engineering projects are all outside of the class. Anyway, down to business. Maplelag was a sweet weekend not only racing but also the social activities in between. Sat night was a wicked game of Mad Gab, and Sunday evening was a BBQ and bonfire. I went up sat morning and arrived right before the TT went off. I took my camera to suicide hill and took some video of everyone ripping up the hill. Sam crashed hard right after suicide by tangling up with a rider he was passing, breaking his derailleur. They let him go again though at the end. Brendan Moore won that. Short Track that evening was fun. I followed the lead group for the last 7 min with the helmet cam. Paul Hanson has the video on his computer so I can't post it here. Dan Swanson won the sprint. Sundays XC event was tough. I was with the lead group of 6 or so 3/4 into the the 1st lap then fell off the pace a bit. Going onto the 2nd lap I was catching back up and was like within 10 seconds from regrouping. When I hit the lakeside drops I was mentally losing it from trying to catch up that I was making rookie moves and lost a bunch of time. I never did catch up. For the rest of the race I was riding in no-mans-land wondering if there was a race going on. The closest person back was Tom Miller and he was 3 min away. On the last lap I started cramping bad going throught hte first section of lakeside drops. I slammed a full bottle which held off the cramping but gave me no more fluids for a full lap. At the finish I almost caught Paul Hanson who was feeling the pain of a hardtail in full suspension territory. I was content with 6th place. I payed for it after the finish when I was putting on my shoes a muscle group in my quad siezed up like you wouldn't believe almost bringing me to tears. It was the worst pain I've experienced. Sam ran and got me water and I opened about 4 capsules of electrolytes into my mouth followed by about 2 water bottles. When I moved again my left hamstring tightened up. Its wierd watching the muscles move around under the skin as they start to slowly loosen back up. These were the worst cramps I've ever experienced thus far. I don't think I've ever cramped up prior to this this year. I took down about 7 waterbottles in the first 3 hrs after the race and was going to the bathroom every half hr. Sam was railing the singletrack in a breakaway with TJ Woodruff and took 2nd. He also finished 2nd overall in the stage race for the entire weekend. Thanks to The Richards Family for putting on a wonderfull race.
Brendan the only one not to stand up on suicide and still makes it look easy. Jen was pounding nails too.