Black Bear Rampage 09

So here it goes, my first blog! It comes on the day after my first mountain bike win! I'm pretty stoked, only took a year, over 20 races and several thousand miles of training.

The weekend got off to a late start saturday. As we were loading up the car getting ready to leave I noticed Matt's frame was cracked. After a long discussion he decide to dig out his old Cannondale. It has been long enough since he last road it to have cobwebs all over it. So off we go. Spent sat. night camping with a few friends and got to bed early for a good nights sleep.
Woke bright and early sunday morning, broke camp, had breakfast, and headed to the race. The Black Bear Rampage is a 40 miles race utilizing the Tansi trail system around the Ocoee Olympic Whitewater Center. Last year I finish 5th in what would be my first race in almost 10 years. This year I have been racing all year, training hard, and had and idea of the way this would go down. The race starts with a 3 mile climb up the highway. About half way up I found myself at the back of a 6 person breakaway. I was good with this, it's a long race and I just wanted to see how the first half would pan out. Half a mile left to the single track three of the pack had droped off, so I started the single track in third. My plan was to just let them set the pace and wait till about half way, see how things were going, and decide how to play it out from there. Some where around mile 13-14 second place slowed way down, I eased by and never saw him again. I was starting to like my plan. At mile 18.5 there is a 2.5 mile gravel road climb. The leader had about a hundred yards on me, but was insight. I noticed he kept looking over his shoulder, but he looked like he was struggling and I was making up some ground. By the time we finished the climb and started the next single track I was on his wheel. Quarter of a mile later he was moving a little slower than I wanted so I eased by him for the lead. I picked up the pace a little, but was careful to not push it too hard. The rest of the race was pretty much just holding on. I felt like I started to fad with about 5 to go. Fortunately I had a big enough lead to hold it to the finish! 40 miles, 3 hours, 18 min.