Surprize ending…

Posted on Tuesday July 05, 2011 by Jason Bailey

Have you ever had one of those races. You know, the one where you do a mass start of 95 people (unexpeditely) and your standing in the 95th starting position? All groups and ages starting at the same time. The trail happens to NOT be the type of trail that would accomidate this many people starting at the same time. Getting over it. So, I realize it is my fault for not standing in the front of the line awaiting the start, even though I thought we would have started with a group size of 12 (ok, I'm not quite over it). I estimate I lost about 5 minutes in the first lap trying to find creative ways to pass people. I'm not the most skilled rider so this is tough for me. I caught up to Bruce, but he being the more skilled rider, easily found a line and rode away. I spent the second lap trying to find my legs. I wasn't sure why they felt so tired and thick..... oh yeah!! Why did I think I would be fully recovered from the 24hr race I did 7 days prior? At the end of lap two I starting feel the zip come back to my legs. I saw Bruce on his way back into the trail as I was trying to start lap 3. I jokingly said "I'm going to catch you", which I didn't believe I would. Well a couple of minutes later I was pushing hard while Bruce closely followed. It was we passed at least 8 guys, three with number plates in my range. We were about 1.5 miles from the finish and I let Bruce know I was about to attack the climb. We are in different catagories and the guy just in front of us was in mine. I put on an impressive display of power, at least I would like to think so, and flew by 4 guys on the climb. With one last guy in my sights I switched gears to ramp up for a sprint (I havn't lost one yet this year).... crap, the chain fell off... dismount....chains back on... Well I didn't catch the guy in front of me, but I shed 3 minutes off of my previous lap and was feeling pretty good. Bruce finished just behind me. I'm not going to lie, I was a little excited to see the results. Even though I had an unfortunate starting position and struggled through lap two, I believed I made up good ground in the last lap. Last place. 12 of 12. Then end J