Feeling stronger

After doing a preride of Addison Oaks with a couple of my team mates and feeling a little fatigued in the legs I was beginning to wonder if my legs were ever going to recover from racing the past few weeks. It has been a long time since I really felt good on the bike, way before the Cohutta 100.

Since I wasn't racing on Saturday I planned on doing a long ride instead and catch some of the race. Once I got out of my subdivision and onto the dirt roads I felt completely different from the day before. My legs had the snap in them that had been missing and my HR was where it should be as well, quickly moving up and down depending on the effort.

I did a lap of Addison before the race started and then went to the start area to cheer on those I knew, especially my team mate Shari Scurr. Watching everyone take off at the start made me wish I was racing, especially since I was feeling so good. I had to keep telling myself to remember the races coming up. No sense racing only to have to try and recover for an even bigger effort in two weeks.

After waiting for Shari to complete her first lap I rode over to Stony Creek and did a lap there before riding back to Addison for a race update. Joel was there with a mini camera, we had arranged to video a lap of the course. Robin got ready and was the "rabbit" while I rode behind him with the camera on my bike. Robin set a pretty good pace and we were soon passing some of the racers. Of course we were careful to not interfere with their racing.

The video was a little jumpy but looked pretty good from what I saw. Hopefully it will be able to be put up on the web site. We are experimenting with the best way to mount the camera and may have two cameras, one on the bike looking at the lead rider and another on the lead rider pointing back. We are going to try and video a lot of the trails in the area once we figure out the best way to do it.

I don't know the official results of the race but I understand that Shari finished 2nd, and was able to finish a little early after riding for 11.5 hours since the third place women would not be able to catch her. Amazing considering Shari had knee surgery not too long ago. My friend Chris W got his first win in the 12 hour SS class. Congratulations, I understand a tattoo is in the works?