Dirt Sweat and Gears 2010

I was totally psyched to do this race this year, sans rain. So psyched, in fact, that Alex and I signed up for the 12-hour open mens duo cat, and I put gears on?!? We set out through the darkness in the Subie with none other than N, E. and my dog Huey in the back, arriving at 12:30am and settling in by 1:30.

The plan was as follows: 1) Outsprint a good number of folks in the LeMans start (this worked somewhat to plan); 2) Put in a hot first lap; followed by 3) Alex putting in a blistering second lap. 4) Mellowing to 2 lap pulls for a while; and 5) each put in a final single last lap.

It

worked fairly to plan all the way until Step 2, where in the field, before the woods, I took a rock to the derailleur and wheel. My derailleur was bent and something was causing my chain to slacken and derail. I stopped briefly to straighten my derailleur but that didn’t help my chain from dragging and going slack and by the third stop, realized it was a broken spoke caught up in the cassette. I finished my lap, handed the torch to Alex, and went to fix my bike.

Alex’s first laps go by quickly, even with a 3-inch spike through the rear tire.
Meanwhile, the kids are tearing it up at the pump track with Huey keeping a close eye…or as close as he can keep without actually being Lassie.

It was during my third lap that things got sticky. I only saw about five drops myself, but apparently, the sky dropped out on the northern half of the course during my second lap while I was down south. It got super sloppy and for a sec, then started clogging things up a bit. Luckily it was only half the course, and not a totally demoralizing 3 hour slog, but it was close.

The day wore on - ride, stop, put on PJs, eat rice ball, hand off water, stretch, put on sweaty chamois, etc. Throw in a smoothie thrown in for good measure and to keep the kiddos happy, “Could you split it into two? Yes they’d both like whipped cream and a strawberry.” 20 seconds lapse, and up comes Elliott with half his half smoothie, tears rolling down his cheeks and dirt piled a ½ -inch high at the bottom of the glass. “Could you split that in two?” I take the other half with whipped cream and a strawberry. It was about now that they cut off the sticky portion of the course, causing me to cause Alex to do without water for a lap while I’m lounging around in my pajama bottoms drinking a strawberry smoothie.

“No Nina, I don’t think your dad wants you to show your new friends the inside of the tent and no, I don’t want them all inside the Subaru”

As evening set in, it became apparent that we were not making podium without a bonk or a serious mechanical on the part of one of the other teams, but we kept it up. I put the kids to bed in the tent with Huey on watch, and warmed up for a final nighttime push. Up until now, the fastest lap we had put in was somewhere around the 45 minute mark, put in by Alex. Now, time was ticking as I waited for my teammate to come back in. The announcer warned “50 minutes to get your last lap in!” 45 minutes, still no Alex?! BEER ME!!!!!!! 4th is good enough for an Old Chub and free Yazoo!

Many beers and some excellent grub go down. I even took an active role in making beer and music more accessible to the general public (only the former was a good thing). We later find out that Huey, being the grand protector that he is, actually went into town during the day for a while with some 20-year old girls.

We woke the next morning to rain, or more specifically, Alex woke to 2-inches of water in his tent, and I woke to the sound of Alex packing up.

This is one of the best run and most fun endurance races out there, so scoop the mud out of your panties and RACE IT next year!