Just 99 miles to go

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

I finished dammit.

A full race report will follow but for now a few highlights.
I finished the damn race, and the way I feel right now I'm never doing it again.
I rolled past the finish line at 10:05pm.
Thats 15 and half hours of riding.
I've never been so glad to have finished something.

I had multiple crashes, I mean alot.
Somewhere around 10.
While my legs feel like they are ready drop off of my body, the upper body feels fine except for the cuts, bruises, and scrapes I recieved during the crashes. None serious, but one that drew blood and had some AS volunteers eyeballing me.

I had one mechanical which could have ended my race. I sliced the rear tire coming down Dowells Draft (after AS2). This resulted in a very loud blowout (BOOM!) which scared the shit out of me and caused crash #4 or 5 ( I lost track). I rigged some duct tape as a boot but the tube was still bulging out a little through the tire. If the angelic volunteers at AS3 hadn't come up with the extra tire that they gave me ( and installed) that would have been it for me.

I spent the whole day pushing to meet the 3:30 cutoff for AS4 (made it by 30 minutes) and the 6:00 PM cutoff for 5 (made it by 15 minutes).

As I said previously, my legs hurt (an understatement) and am thinking about giving my bike away to the first person who offers me a box of Hoho's.(Mmmm, cream filled choclately goodness).

That last 20 miles really hurt but crossing that finish line felt so good.
I'm never been so glad to have pushed through the pain to accomplish a goal.

I'm now officially a Shenandoah Mt. 100 finisher and nobody can take that away.

seeya

5 comments:

Jim said...

Awesome... :)

Tom said...

right on.

David Zuk said...

14:39 for me. I think I just missed you at AS5, i left it at 5:50. What a great ride, but now I'm too sore for words. Thank god for sick days. See you next year?

Anonymous said...

Tommy, you looked a little bit beat up when you can through the food line back at camp. Great job!!!!! Now you have a personal time to beat next year. Chris

Anonymous said...

Rock on - congrats on finishing.